Dark Essence
by The Alien of Pluto
Summary: 1000 years ago a Darkness was sealed away in order to protect the Atmos. But nothing lasts forever, this evil is back and spreading chaos and terror as it exacts revenge on all of Atmos.
1. It Begins With The Sealing

**_O.C.s at first; consider it an Atmos history lesson and everything gets better :)_**

**_Rated T cause he swears...twice...at one point...but that's about it. _**

**_I have NO idea about the genre, it's not really horror, angst, drama(?), misery...forget it, just read and pick your own genre._**

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* * *

Evil Essence **_

Lightning lit the red sky for a few brief seconds, illuminating the figure of a tall woman. She was running, flashing past the windows of the palace, her cape flowing behind her. Anyone would have seen that this woman was out of place for running, her bone-thin stature, regal features, her clothes suggested it. Finally she burst into the main hall of the palace, throwing the doors wide and striding in at a now brisk walk.

"Fabian" She announced, "it is ready."  
Fabian turned around from his place at the back of the room, his face half in shadow.

"Excellent. Now we must find the catalyst."

He turned to one of the guards standing at attention beside him,

"Prepare our transport."

The guard nodded and ran out of the room.

Fabian embraced the woman, "Ave, my wife. We go today to make safe the world for our child," he pulled back and looked into her eyes, "so what is it you fear?"

Tears ran down her face as she replied, "We go to make safe the world for our child, but is it so much as a kinderworld without her father?"

Fabian's face hardened and he released his wife. Turning away from her said, "It is not a pleasant choice, but a necessary sacrifice. I must."

From the doorway came the voice of one of the guards, "Sir, your ship is ready."

He bowed and left the room and once again Fabian embraced his wife, "You understand that I must do this?"

Ave nodded and kissed her husband one last time.

"I will meet you on the ship."

Their ship hovered over the newly founded Terra Atmosia, the one safe place in their entire world. Only months ago a crystal scientist had stumbled upon a one-of-a-kind crystal hidden deep in a bottomless gorge. Striking blue in colour, this crystal cast a saving light, holding back the Darkness that threatened to destroy the Atmos. Now, Fabian Cyclonis gathered the leaders of the various other Terras and explained his plan.

"Fellows, long have we been plagued by the Darkness. Three hundred years ago it emerged from the hearts of man and beast, feasting on their life forces. Nothing can kill it, nothing can hurt it. Many have tried to banish it, to free us. All have failed. I…would have one more try."

Everyone in the room stirred at his words, a few even cried out in opposition.

"This Terra is large, yes, but it cannot hold all of the people in our world! Nor can Aurora's crystal bring light to everywhere at once! We must get rid of the Darkness! Make safe this world for our descendents! Who among you would have your children grow up in the world we have when there is chance at a better one? A brighter world, safer and," he glanced at his wife briefly, "kinder than the one we have known?"

As Fabian paused, one of the men at the back of the room stood up, swishing his long, blonde hair back from his eyes and said,

"If you do have some sort of," he swung his hands around in the air as if trying to generate ideas, "miracle solution," he managed, "then why haven't you used it yet? Why call us all here and waste time?"

Fabian rubbed the back neck uncomfortably, "Well," he started, looking at the floor as he paused, "I…" he sucked in a deep, painful breath, "…need a volunteer."

The room erupted into angry shouts as people jumped to their feet.

"What do you mean a volunteer?"

"Volunteer for what?"

"Are you insane?"

A burst of white energy silenced the room. Fabian lowered the stone held in his hand and stepped forward once more, "Many of you, I can see, are greatly opposed to this idea, though you've no clue as to what it is yet. One among us is the answer, the only one who can save the Atmos. They alone would be strong enough and willing enough to comply, to accept this proposition."

Once again the room rang with shouts of the various people gathered there.

"Please! Let me explain!" Fabian cried and again the room went silent, "We," he gestured to his wife, "have a way to determine the catalyst of our plan. If you wish to know who it is, form a line so we can test you. If it is pain you fear than shame upon you! You are the self-proclaimed leaders of the Terras, but if anyone had sensed that you were not strong enough to lead they would have overthrown you. The people of Atmos have put their trust in all of us and each of us must play our part to prove them right! Do not show cowardice at this time of need; do not show the people weakness! They need heroes, and we must give them heroes! Can you say no to that? I would like to hear you say it."

Fabian glared at them all and slowly, as his words sunk in, they lined up under his fierce gaze.

"There will be no pain for this, but an absence of everything. For a few moments you will feel nothing at all, see nothing, and hear nothing. It will not last and it is only to test your soul. Have no fear." He held up a small orange crystal and touched it to the heart of the first man in line. There was a moment of silence as the man's face grew blank and a glowing aura surrounded him, then Fabian released the man. He shook his head and the man staggered away looking relieved. It was only a few minutes later when Fabian began to lose hope; each person so far had been rejected and only three remained. He held his little crystal to the heart of the next man, his best friend. They smiled at each other and nodded in greeting before Fabian's crystal overcame him. Unlike the others, this man began to glow a pale yellow whereas the others were varying shades of red and brown. When the man stopped glowing Fabian nodded again to him and said,

"Tylur, my friend, are you willing to hear my plan?"

Tylur smiled, "Fabian, if indeed I am your friend, you should know I am willing to do much more, no matter the cost."

"Indeed." Fabian agreed but added in a whisper, "That you are the catalyst is both a wonderful revelation and a pain in my heart. If only I did not have to…"

Fabian sighed and straightened up and led Tylur to the back room where Ave waited to explain their plan and where they could not be overheard.

Tylur fell to his knees. He sat prone for several moments thinking over what Ave had told him. Silently, tears began to slide down his face and he lifted his head to meet her gaze, "All of them?"

She nodded and backed away as her husband walked forward to kneel beside Tylur.

"My friend, you know I would never ask this of you if I believed we had another choice."

Tylur shook his head, "It is not fear for myself, but for…" he swept his hand across the horizon. Fabian nodded and placed his hand on Tylur's shoulder,

"I understand that you could never hurt anyone willingly. But if you should not do this then many more than your family would suffer. Consider this: I too must make a terrible decision. I have chosen to leave my wife and child and to give my own life to stop the Darkness. If you despise having to cause others pain, then know that I do also. Especially people I know, people I love. But others need our help. Think of everyone you can save, everyone who will _not_ suffer…because of this."

Fabian stood and extended his hand. Tylur glanced at it for a second, then wiped his eyes and took it. Fabian pulled him to his feet and hugged him.

"You are like a brother to me and now I have put this burden on you. Forgive me."

Tylur smiled weakly and hugged back, "You were forgiven long ago, brother. Come, we have a world to save!"

They released each other and Fabian reached back to take his wife's hand. The three made their way outside, pushing past all of the curious leaders. The blonde-haired man, Harrier, ran up behind them and forced Fabian around,

"You can not just call us all up here, tell us you have a plan to save Atmos, pick one of us and then go off without explaining it to the rest of us! I _demand_ that you-"

Tylur and Ave shrank back from Fabian at Harrier's words. Seeing this, Harrier faltered and he looked back at Fabian. He jumped backwards, landing on his back in the dirt as everyone around him took a large step back. Fabian loomed over the man, his expression horrifying; a dangerous show of fury, offense and agony, it stunned everyone into complete silence.

"You _demand_?"

Harrier whimpered, terrified.

"If you really wish to know" Fabian hissed menacingly, his voice carrying over the crowd, "I called you all here to test you, to find someone with a pure soul. Someone so pure and good they could _contain _the Darkness! Once I found that person I would need to recruit them to this plan and summon the Darkness. And when the Darkness takes a form small enough I will take this crystal," he held up a small triangular crystal and glanced at it for a second before turning back to Harrier, "and seal it in Tylur! Seem simple enough? Well, this little crystal cannot do all the work by its self, it needs more energy; it needs my life essence. So in order to save your high-and-mighty ass, I need to give _my _life to trap a being of pure evil inside my _best friend_. I need to leave my _pregnant wife _to raise _our child _by _herself_ and if you think that is an easy decision on my part then think again! And what about _Tylur_? Do you also _demand _to know what _his_ sacrifice is?" Fabian was, by now, shouting, shaking his Answer at the crowd. "Tylur not _only _has to harbour the Darkness," he said sarcastically, "which may or may not cause him physical pain, but also condemn his whole family to it! In order to keep the Darkness locked away it needs to be passed from host to host, father to son! Do I need to explain that part to you too you arrogant bastard?"

Fabian remained hunched over, breathing hard and glaring as, slowly, Harrier raised himself to feet.

"Forgive me" Harrier breathed, "I did not mean to degrade or insult you in any way."

Fabian whipped around and stormed off, eventually followed by Tylur and Ave. Behind him Harrier heard a hushed whisper,

"I never knew Fabian could be so…scary!"

Fabian and Tylur stood alone at the crest of a small hill at the edge of the Terra. Behind them Ave, Harrier and Tylur's wife, Alicia, stood at the far bottom of the hill, about 500metres back. Fabian stood with his head bowed and hands folded under his chin, staring at nothing in particular, deep in concentration.

"You do know how to summon it?" Tylur asked.

Fabian nodded, "I know several ways: destroy the Aurora Stone and/or commit a truly evil act."

Tylur grinned, "We could always kill Harrier," he said jokingly.

Fabian smiled briefly but did not look up.

Tylur gazed out at the scene before him; black sky rolling with thunder and flashing with lightning, angry clouds roiling below, and in the distance red flames rising from the nearest Terra. Then Fabian grunted in pain and threw back his arms, arching his back. He fell to his knees moaning, swaying slightly.

"It's…coming" Fabian gasped, trying to stand.

Tylur helped him to his feet, not bothering to ask about the circumstances. Behind him he could faintly hear Ave crying and Alicia whimpering. He understood their fear but did not share it; instead he only felt faint apprehension and excitement. He glanced up at the sky. The clouds above the Terra were slowly swirling down, gathering above them at the Stone's perimeter around the Terra in a cyclonic fashion.

He heard Ave cry out and turned around again. Harrier was using his full weight to restrain the woman. Tears were leaking down her face, staining her dress as she reached for her husband. Alicia was helping now, tears pouring down her face as well, as she watched Ave. He could tell she felt the other's pain. He looked back to the Darkness, feeling strangely hollow. The Darkness had changed into a different form; it was small and solid looking, about the size of a large man. It had no eyes, only two red slashes looking for all the world like bloody rips leading to endless suffering, pain and fear.

It's voice was worse, echoing in their minds, clawing at their ears, reminding them of all their pain, all their fears,

"_I do not make deals, Fabian Cyclonis."_

Tylur looked at Fabian amazed to see him still standing tall, as he asked,

"Then why did you come here?"

The Darkness laughed, without mirth, in cold disapproval,

"_I came to take you. You do not make deals with me, but I expect your soul, as you offered."_

"I think not!" Fabian sprang forward, using surprise as he jumped off the terra and through the Stone's barrier, stabbing his crystal into the heart of the Darkness. Both screamed on contact, Fabian disintegrating like smoke in the breeze. Tylur instinctively lurched forward, stepping out of the protective perimeter to the edge of the precipice. Left alone on hill and closest to the Darkness was enveloped in it. Darkness swirled around him, disappearing into him. He could feel it, tearing at his mind, his being, and it hurt. He screamed in pain as much as confusion, the Darkness clouded everything, everything but the pain. Then for a few moments there was nothing, as there had been during Fabian's testing. The next thing he felt was Alicia holding him, and he saw through hazy eyes as the world spun, the clouds breaking and true sunlight entering their world for the first time in three centuries before he passed out again.

Ave was traumatized. She stayed kneeling at the edge of the precipice, eyes wide with disbelief, her hand outstretched, reaching for her husband. She seemed to be staring past what was in front of her, through the rational world. She didn't move except that her reaching fingers would twitch, waiting for what wouldn't come, waiting for the warmth of Fabian's touch. Eventually she broke down, hugging herself and crying out her heart. Hours, she stayed like that, letting no one near her, refusing all help until finally she fell asleep out of pure exhaustion. Her dreams were filled with glowing red eyes, horrible sounds and the constant feeling of fear. She saw again and again Fabian being taken from her, each time his killing became more twisted and horrifying.

Eventually the dreams stopped and she entered into the white mists of semi-consciousness, her mind calculating, working furiously. She blamed Fabian's death on the people of Atmos. If they had killed the Darkness sooner, her love, her comfort, would still be alive. She would not be alone as she was now, in some strange and cold place. Atmos owed her, she reasoned. She opened her eyes and looked around, taking in the soft-coloured walls and pale sunlight filtering through the window. Gently she reached down and caressed the life within her, whispering softly to her baby,

"Atmos owes us, my child. They will give us what is rightfully ours. They will give us Atmos!"

"How are you feeling Tylur?"

"Sore."

"Not particularly _evil_ or anything?"

"No, just my head hurts. Where are we Alicia?"

"Terra Hail, but do not worry, I found a safe spot deep in the jungle **(1)**."

Tylur sat up, looking around slowly, shaking his head. He placed a hand over his eyes.

"I feel different somehow."

Alicia chuckled nervously, "Of course you do! You have being of pure evil inside you! Did you expect to feel the same?"

"Thank you for reminding me!" He laughed too.

Their quiet laughter cut off as they heard something rustling in the bushes nearby. Tylur grabbed a stick lying by his side, reached into Alicia's pack and jammed one of the energy crystals on top of it. He stood in front of his wife, cautious of whatever might live on this new Terra. The crackling got closer and they heard a small squawk. Suddenly the thing crashed through the last of the bushes and fell into their camp. It looked like…they didn't know. It had long ears, perhaps a little longer than a rabbit's, a long tail slightly more furry than a monkey's and strong bare fingers. Its fur was a pale green, its eyes blue. The creature scrambled upright and made a cute squealing sound before brandishing its fists defensively. Alicia exhaled quietly, her shoulders relaxing as she took in the creature's tiny, not-very-intimidating battle stance. Tylur wasn't going to lower his guard; he stayed as he was, with the crystal-infused stick held toward the little creature.

"Tylur, you are too suspicious. Look at it! So cute and intelligent-"

Suddenly Alicia stopped talking; her went back ramrod straight and she seemed paralyzed. A moment later Tylur felt it too; a sharp poke in his back and he felt his muscles freeze, rendering him unable to move.

Out of the bushes crawled five dark-skinned men with paint on their faces and spears in their hands. Another man walked into the clearing, stepping around Tylur, who noticed he held a crystal and decided that this was the man who had frozen them.

The natives formed a loose line facing the paralyzed intruders and examined them curiously. The man in front bent and patted the little green monkey-creature's head; it backed away from the touch, growling. The man was dressed as a traditional shaman with a bone necklace, long, furry animal cloak, and various scars due to his practices, an excessive amount of paint on his face.

He stepped forward into Tylur's face and demanded something in an unfamiliar language.

Tylur didn't move, though he could feel the crystal's effect starting to wear off on him. The shaman glared at him and repeated whatever he'd said, louder and more insistent.

When Tylur again didn't answer he moved to Alicia and repeated his demand to her instead. The shaman was becoming agitated that neither had answered him but he didn't seem to realize that they couldn't understand nor move even if they did. He motioned to one of the other natives and he seized Alicia around the waist, lifted her onto his shoulder and started back for the jungle.

At this Tylur felt the crystal's restraints fall off of him completely and he darted forward toward the man. Grabbing his arm, Tylur spun the man around and punched him in the face with hand that still held the crystal and stick. The man flew backward into the dirt and laid there unconscious with Alicia half under him. The remaining natives, minus the shaman, converged on Tylur with spears held out in anger. He held his ground, calculating his chances. On one side there were the natives with spears on the other was a still-frozen Alicia and the jungle. Lightning fast and suddenly, he brought his knees up, his hand down, snapping his weapon in half. He gripped each end like an individual sword, spinning them in his hands and falling back into a defensive position, hoping to intimidate his attackers. Their eyes widened but still they advanced and Tylur jumped with amazing agility over the natives. Landing behind them he swept his mock blades under their feet, blasting them with his crystal as they fell. They didn't stir as he stood upright and turned to face the shaman.

He was blinking rapidly in disbelief that all of his men had been defeated by one. Tylur glared at him, breathing hard, resisting the urge to destroy him. The shaman began to back away, never taking his eyes from Tylur's until he was deep in the jungle where he turned and ran. Tylur threw his weapons to the ground, disgusted that he'd had to resort to violence and walked over to Alicia. Her eyes followed him but the rest of her was still paralyzed, he picked her up awkwardly.

"How are you still frozen?" He asked. He didn't expect an answer and he didn't get one.

Tylur sat down, putting his wife's head in his lap. He stared at her as she did him, marveling at the depths they could each see in the other's eyes.

There was a tiny chirp and Tylur looked up to see the green creature in front of him.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded of it.

It blinked at him then motioned with its arms, pointing at him and Alicia and then running with its fingers across the air. It chirruped and tilted its head, asking for confirmation. Tylur didn't move so it continued, pointing at him and Alicia and then itself and again motioning the running.

"You led them here and now you want to come with us?"

It nodded excitedly, coming closer. Alicia twitched in his arms, distracting his attention.

"Oh…" she groaned. Her muscles seemed to protest as she brought her hand to her head making her move in jerking spasms.

"Can you walk?" He asked.

"Yes…I think so." She whispered.

"Good. We need to hurry; I think that shaman went to find others."

"You fought!" Alicia remembered, "You fought those people…"

"It does not matter, more are coming. Run!"

They lurched into the jungle Alicia, at first, jerking slowly but soon her stride became faster and more fluid. They ran as fast as they could in the foliage to where Alicia had hidden their sky transport.

Suddenly there were shouts behind them and blasts of energy sailed past their heads.

"Do not stop!" He told Alicia, stopping himself.

"Trust me!" He pleaded to her.

Tylur grabbed at a low hanging vine and pulled. It broke off and he tied one end around the trunk of a nearby tree. Reaching for the other end he realized it had already been tied by the green monkey-like animal. He smiled and it grinned in return.

Tylur stretched his arm out and the creature ran up his back to cling like a living pack on his shoulder. He stood up and ran after Alicia, still dodging blasts of crystal energy fired from behind.

He noticed the light thinning ahead and sped up.

He tripped suddenly on a log in his path, landing heavily on the ground his hands digging into the soft dirt. A pulse of raw energy ran through him as he slid to a stop and it continued across the ground, killing the foliage as it traveled over the Terra **(1)**. He picked himself up, shaking his head to clear it, and ran into a clearing to the transport.

As they lifted off the natives crept slowly out of the deadened jungle to stare in fear after the airship.

"Tylur that wave of energy-" Alicia started.

"It was nothing; forget that any of this ever happened."

"Tylur, I want to write this down, so our children will know the whole story. Besides, with Scope now a part of the family I do not think that will be possible." Alicia winked at the green monkey creature.

"Scope?"

"It seemed like a reasonable name. If indeed it found us for the natives it must have a good natural radar sense, no?"

Tylur shrugged.

* * *

**_So? What'd ya think?_**

**(1)_ Um, yes, Terra Hail is a creation of _I Love Storm Hawks_, but they told me I could use the Terra. They said Terra Hail was pretty much a dead Terra and that all the different groups of natives live in suspicion and distrust of each other and outsiders; I guess I invented the reason why. Hope that doesn't get me in trouble. _**


	2. The Council's Decision

_Sky Knight Academy, 3 years prior to _Age of Heroes_, Council POV_

"You think it wise to let him train?"

"No one must suspect anything and there would be questions if we denied him this chance. Yes, if he wants in, we can let him try."

"You say that like you know he will fail. What do you have planned, Oliver?"

The two old men and their silent companion turned to look at the couple in front of them. As the three highest respected men in all of Atmos, the Sky Knight Council, it was their duty to test those who wished to train as Knights.

The man named Oliver, Head of Council, looked down at the boy and his guardian. He studied the boy; red hair, green eyes, eager smile. It was hard to believe he harbored such an evil being; then again, no one knew for sure, and there was a much more obvious choice.

The boy was looking up at the woman with him, silently asking what he was expected to do.

"How old are you, son?" Oliver asked, leaning over the desk counter to better see the boy.

He looked a little ashamed, so did the woman, "Eleven."

"Are you sure-"

"I can do it! Please sir, let me try. I can keep up; I can become a Sky Knight!"

"He can, sir. Fittest little guy I've ever seen, even when he was a baby. Be your loss if you didn't let him train."

The men turned around again.

"So, should we let him train? We can use his age as an excuse not to."

"No. We'll let him train. It's when he goes out to fight, when he has a squadron, that he could be dangerous. We'll use the excuse of his age then."

All three men nodded and faced around. Oliver sighed but it was only for show.

"You can try the training. We will tell you now that no one your age will be at the Academy; we don't usually take students this young. Good luck."

He pointed to a door on the left of the Hall, gesturing for them to proceed.

The woman knelt down, spinning the boy around by the shoulder so he was facing her.

"Aerrow, you have to go by yourself from now on, I need to get back to the orphanage."

"You can't stay-?"

"Sorry, hon. we talked about this remember? You go become a big hero and visit me when you do, okay?"

"Okay. Wait for me, Mona."

"Waiting already Aerrow," They both smiled.

She hugged the boy and stood up, waiting for him to disappear around the door before turning to the Council again.

"Keep him safe, please."

The old men nodded grimly.

_Council Hall, _Age of Heroes_, Council POV_

The boy stood in front of him again, five others were with him this time. Oliver, despite having everything memorized about the new 'Storm Hawks,' was consulting a list. Again, he was acting for their sakes; he couldn't let them know _anything_ about this, about the boy.

"It seems everything is in order."

The kids seemed to relax a little and the girl said something to the blonde.

Sighing internally at what he had to do he opened his book, and held the pen up,

"I'll need your names and positions for the registry."

He waited for them to speak. As expected, the boy went first.

He saluted, "Aerrow, Sky Knight and leader."

The blonde went next, "Finn, wingman and sharpshooter."

Oliver scratched each of their names downs, pausing when he looked at the girl.

She couldn't possibly- the Merb sneezed, breaking the elder from his thoughts.

A furry blue thing jumped out after Stork had finished speaking, performed a series of Sky Fu moves and stood hands-on-hips on its hind legs waiting for a response.

"Eh…what is that, some kind of pet?"

It growled at him. Aerrow knelt down and placed a hand on its shoulder,

"He prefers 'mission specialist.' We just call him Radarr."

Oliver grunted, "The Council will be most pleased to learn the new Storm Hawks squadron has formed."

Indeed, he thought, ecstatic.

"Your predecessors were greatly admired-" yes, and that was where the trail of Tylur's descendants picked up again, "You have much to live up to Aerrow."

"We're ready." The boy announced confidently.

Oliver hated himself as he held the book out, "Sign here please," and smiled at Aerrow.

As the boy reached out to take the pen Oliver readjusted the glasses he'd let slip down his nose and pretended to be surprised.

He snatched back the pen, "Wait just a minute! How old are you?"

The boy looked ashamed again as he answered, "Fourteen."

Oliver kicked them out of the Hall, denying their pleas to be heard, saying that they were just too young. As the doors closed against their dejected expressions he hoped they'd leave the Sky Knight thing alone and wait to come of age. He very much doubted that, but it was worth it, wasn't it?

_Street outside the Beacon Tower, _Age of Heroes_, Council POV_

Oliver led the rest of the Council towards the illicit Storm Hawks, a half smile on his face.

"Storm Hawks," he called, "we'd like a word."

They watched as the sharpshooter nudged the Wallop, "See? I bet this is the part where they beg us to protect the Terra!"

Not quite. Oliver hoped that by giving them a mission like this, it would lower their excitement about being a real squadron and maybe reconsider their careers choice.

0o0o

It was to no avail. Barely had the teens set out for their mission when someone pointed out to the Council a swarm of Cyclonian fighters. Painfully, Oliver realized that, being themselves and the only trained squadron around, the Storm Hawks Junior would try to fight the Talons. This was what he'd hoped to avoid, sending them into battle with Aerrow as part of it.

There was no helping it now, they just had to watch…and prepare to run.

0o0o

He stared in horror as the Dark Ace blasted the wing of Aerrow's glider and as Aerrow fell, almost head first into the main street of Atmosia. He took a step back as the Dark Ace landed and drew his glowing red sword to Aerrow's throat; it would not be good for anyone if he tried to kill the boy.

Miraculously the Cyclonian did not strike but after a short bragging speech, deactivated his blade, took the Aurora Stone from one of his thugs and addressed the crowd.

"Your own sworn protector turns on you and Atmos sends children instead of Sky Knights? How pathetic."

He pocketed the crystal, turned and climbed onto his skimmer, "The wrath of Cyclonia is your future now."

The Cyclonians flew away with the crystal and Oliver turned back to the boy. Two of his friends landed and rushed to help him to his feet; the old man winced.

"Where are the others?" Aerrow asked.

Oliver sighed and turned his thoughts to the pressing matter of Cyclonis having the Aurora Stone. When the others joined Aerrow and were reassured that he was fine, Oliver walked forward, eager and frightened to hear the boy's answer to his next statement.

"The Aurora Stone in the hands of Cyclonis and her Talons," he turned away from Aerrow, to the crowd, "Our own Sky Knight has betrayed Atmosia. Something _must_ be done!"

"It will." Aerrow responded, eager and confident as he always seemed.

He had to make them understand, at the very least, the girl. He turned and used his hands to emphasize his words, "The future of the entire Atmos rests in that crystal."

"We're going to Cyclonia to get it back." The boy announced, further surprising the Council.

His squadron exclaimed their surprise, and Aerrow just nodded. Oliver stayed silent and still, he'd thought that maybe once the boy had felt how the crystal hurt him and made him feel he'd hate it and say good riddance. Maybe it was just the Sky Knight poking through, either way, Oliver wished him luck.

_Council Hall, _Age of Heroes pt.2_, Council POV_

"Of all the brash, reckless things to do, you _destroy_ the Aurora Stone? However, taking into consideration the testimony of Sky Knight Starling, this Council concedes it was the…proper course of action."

Also the fact that none of us has been killed and the world seems normal _has_ helped your case.

"Does that mean the Storm Hawks are official?" The girl asked hopefully.

Oliver took off his glasses and sighed, ignoring the others councilors negative mumbling.

Before he could speak however Aerrow jumped to his own conclusion, though it was the right one: the Council still wouldn't approve of their becoming a squadron. He turned to the girl, "Forget about it Piper, we don't need to be official to know who we are. Wherever Atmos needs help, the Storm Hawks will be there. Let's fly."

The kids were determined, he would admit that. All he could do for now was sit back and wince whenever they were called to a mission. As they turned to leave, the monkey-creature on Aerrow's shoulders, he mentally prepared himself for anything to come.

"Good luck," he said, "Sky Knight."

It was the least he could do; hope that the knight could outweigh the Darkness.


	3. First Stirrings

**_Took me _so_ long to find out what to write and then a few nights ago, poof! there is was!_**

**_Now, it's small, but it has a point. Find it. (Actually I think it has a few...?) _**

**_Next chapter coming sooner. Like tomorrow perhaps..._**

* * *

_Present Day_

He sat up, blinking in the pale yellowish light, and looked around the room. There wasn't much to see; a thick purple curtain had been hung around his bed but from what he _could_ see and feel, Aerrow was in a hospital. He shifted on the hard bed and winced at the pressure on his hand; there was a thin, white bandage all around it and he flexed his fingers experimentally.

Then he closed his eyes and put the other hand to his head and tried to remember what had happened; he shivered, opening his eyes again at some unremembered fear.

After a while a lady in a white cap stuck her head between a part in the curtain, looked shocked to see him awake, and then stepped between the purple folds. She was dressed as a nurse with the white cap pinned to her curly hair, and a white dress and apron with a red cross on it; she held a clipboard in her hand.

She stepped toward him, making a clicking sound and forced his head back, shining a small light into each eye, "Awake I see. Do you remember what happened to you?"

"Uh…no, not really, what happened?" he asked, and the nurse took the opportunity to shove a thermometer between his teeth.

"Hey!"

"Hold still. If you check out okay then you can leave, but if I can't do my job you'll stay in this bed for the rest of you life."

Aerrow stopped fidgeting and raised an eyebrow at her words. She took the thermometer out and wrote on her clipboard.

0o0o

"Okay, so what happened? Why was I in a hospital in the first place?"

He walked with Piper down the crowded main street on Atmosia; it was late afternoon, the sun shining in their eyes.

"Here," she grabbed his arm and pulled him onto a less crowded side street and out to the light forest. When they could no longer hear the sounds of the market she stopped and sat down, leaning against a tree trunk. He copied her, folding his legs up to his chin and waited.

"It's nice here," she said and began, "what's the last thing you remember?"

He thought back, "Monday, we were flying to Atmosia. Just after lunch, you and Finn were arguing about something."

"Right, okay. Finn just made some snappy comment about my work and I flipped out," she looked ashamed and paused; he nodded at her.

She continued, "I don't remember exactly what we said but I remember grabbing this and shoving it in his face," she fingered her blue crystal necklace, "and the rope snapped. You came over to stop the fight or something and…."

Images flashed through his mind and he remembered more than Piper described,

_The blue crystal fell and Finn and Piper stopped shouting to watch it. It hit the metal deck with a tinkling sound and bounced toward him. Aerrow stooped to pick it up and there was a flash like lightening in his mind. His body went numb and limp; he fell. The _Condor_ was blurring around him and a tremor wracked his body, his fist clenched around the crystal and he felt the skin break. _

"You started mumbling things but your voice sounded weird and none of us could understand you…"

_There was a voice in his head, a dark menacing voice that sent chills down his spine; it laughed._

"_You have just opened the door to the eternal suffering of your world. This time I will not be defeated, and Cyclonis will suffer worst for what he did to me."_

_It was confusing; he could make no sense, no meaning behind the voice and it laughed again, _

"_You will soon understand. You will see what you have unleashed on Man and all the other species in this world. They will not die but they shall wish it, for there will be no _joy_, only pain and fear. Can you understand that? And you…you will be _all_ mine. You will experience the thousand years of solitude and unrelenting pain you put me through and then I shall kill you. You will be my one exception."_

_The voice faded, became a whisper, "My one exception. I look forward to it." _

"And then you just stopped all of a sudden and we couldn't wake you up…Aerrow!"

He jerked up when Piper touched his shoulder; she looked worried, "What?"

"Nothing, I thought maybe it was happening again."

They sat in silence for a few more moments.

"Piper?"

"Yes?"

"Have you ever…um; I think we should head back now. It's getting dark."

"Sure."

* * *

**_And just a heads up...if you wanted blood and violence and _evil_ evil, sorry to disappoint. I don't know if it has anything to do with my being a Christian or not but I view 'evil' in my stories as…different. _**

**_My evil is Cartoon Evil, as in Cyclonis is evil but she never actually kills anyone or really physically wounds anyone, she's just diabolical. So I have Cartoon Evil in which the evil being just causes mostly intense fear and hate and bad stuff but is not really _evil_...I've explained that part and I have a quote coming in one of the later chapters that is my favourite and fits 'evil' perfectly._**

**_You shall see. _**

**_Good night._**


	4. Cold

Aerrow sat on the corrugated metal of the _Condor_'s lowered boarding ramp, knees pulled up to his chin, one hand lightly tracing the metal grooves near his feet. The faint glow of the setting sun tinting one side a warm orange, throwing the other into cold shadow; his fingers unconsciously lingered in the shadow. He thought again about the Voice, replaying its words in his mind. It was probably just a hallucination, he told himself; there was nothing else it could be. The doctors had thought it was stress, but nothing like it had happened to him before…

"Aerrow?" Piper called, coming to sit next to him.

"Hey," he said, forcing a smile.

She smiled back.

"Aerrow," she continued after a pause, "what were you going to ask me, when we were talking in the woods?"

"Oh…I was just wondering if you'd ever…seen a hallucination…before."

"I don't think so, why?"

He shrugged and went back to tracing the metal. Piper stared at his hand for a few minutes, and then placed her own on top of it, stopping his movement.

"You're hands are freezing," she muttered, "Aerrow, is that what happened? You had a hallucination?"

"Of a sort, yes" he said.

"Hey, guys!" Finn interrupted, running into the hanger. He beamed at them, noticed Piper's hand still on Aerrow's, his smile fell and then came back twice as big.

"I was gonna say dinner was ready, but if you two are too busy…" he snickered and ran away again before either of them could stand up.

They got to their feet and walked, a fair distance apart, to the bridge and the round table everyone was already seated at. They took their seats, Aerrow beside Junko and next to Piper who was beside Finn, and everyone dug in.

Everyone but the Sky Knight; Aerrow jabbed absently at the food on his plate, staring through it, oblivious to the other's stares.

"Something wrong?" Junko asked him, leaning around his already clean plate.

"No, I was just thinking."

"About?"

"Nothing in particular, uh, books?"

"Speaking of books, check this out!" Piper said energetically, reaching down to a cubby by her feet.

Finn rolled his eyes and stood to leave.

"Sit down Finn, this concerns you too. Stork, you come here too."

He sighed and turned the ship on autopilot, walking over from the controls and reclaiming his seat. Piper passed a little faded green book to Finn and told him to read it. He looked doubtfully at her and turned the book around, tried to open it. The thin, paper pages didn't give, remained clamped shut.

"Where's the key?" he asked.

"There is no key Finn, see? No lock."

He tried again, to the same results. Admitting defeat he passed the book back to Piper. Everyone watched her hands as she picked it up and flipped open the book easily.

"Hey! No fair!" Finn cried.

"Look at the pages," Piper said, ignoring Finn, holding the book out to show everyone.

The pages were old and completely black, with no discernable words, and there was a slight haze about this blackness that piqued curiosity. She closed the book and set it down on the table, looking at each person in turn, as if asking for an explanation. Finn snatched the book and tried to open it again, eventually passing it to Junko, who passed it to Aerrow; the ship drifted away from Atmosia, entering open air space.

Aerrow smiled and began to laugh, slowly at first, and then it built into a maniacal laughter that seemed to echo through the ship. The lights flickered and Aerrow kept laughing; and then the lights quit and the _Condor_ was plunged into darkness.

"Aerrow?" Piper called in the sudden silence.

She reached out and gripped Finn's hand, squeezing it. He returned the pressure and Piper reached out with her right hand, her fingers searching blindly for him. They encountered only empty air,

"Aerrow!" she called more desperate now than before.

"What happened to the lights? Everything else seems to be working okay," Junko whispered from across the table. They could hear the engines, the flow of hot water through the pipes.

"Just a sec, here," Piper said, noticing how muffled her voice sounded. She reached back down to the little cubby at her feet and pulled out a Solaris crystal. As she came back up she looked in the vague direction the windows should have been, but she didn't see any stars.

"What happened to the stars?" she wondered aloud and activated the crystal.

Nothing much happened; the crystal glowed faintly, throwing only a tiny amount of light a few inches out from the diamond's edges.

"Maybe it's dead," she said.

"What's dead?"

"The Solaris crystal"

"How do you know its dead? Did you even try it?"

Her answering 'yes' was drowned out by more laughter, from the opposite end of the bridge.

"The saying that light will always conquer the dark is a lie," a voice hissed in the dark, "The only place that light prevails is in the world of fiction. But here, things are different. In the real world, the Darkness always _wins_!"

At the last word the lights came on again and Piper found that her eyes had already been adjusted to the light; the absence of light had been only in her mind. She focused on Aerrow, standing at the other end of the room, his arms raised and spread apart as if to show the physical elation he'd used on the last word.

Only, it didn't look quite like Aerrow. He was the same height and build, but his skin was paler than normal, almost translucent-looking. And his face was a stranger's for though it smiled there was something evil in the features that she had never seen before.

"Aerrow?" everyone shouted in surprise and horror.

"Not exactly," he laughed again insanely and Piper involuntarily leapt to her feet, "What would cause you more pain?" he asked throwing out an arm toward the front windows. Some invisible energy pulsed through him and out, shattered the glass. He stepped over the broken shards to the outside railing, "Which would give me something more to feed on besides your horror? To see him fall," everyone at the table found their legs and leapt up running to the window frame, as he scrambled up onto the side rail and spread his arms apart, staring at each of them with black, hateful eyes, "or to watch him jump?"

"No!" Piper screeched, taking another step farther. Junko held her back, his eyes wide.

"So be it."

He closed his eyes, breathed deep and when he opened them to look at the others his eyes were their normal green.

"I wish I could say I was sorry, but it just doesn't feel like you'd care. Maybe, this is for the best…" and he flung himself into open air, falling head first.

Everyone but Stork surged forward, leaning over the railing, crying his name and sobbing. Stork ran to the ship's controls and turned the _Condor_ around, dipping down to look for Aerrow, and froze. He jerked the ship to a halt.

Aerrow was staring at him, floating under his own power in the sky; a thin, dark aura surrounded him. He had his arms folded across his chest and his grin was malicious.

"Ten hundred years!" he screamed, "I've waited ten hundred years for this!"

He flung out his hand again and Stork barely managed to keep the ship from flipping right over. Aerrow laughed again, his voice ringing through the silent expanse of the sky, and he reached out both his hands, slowly, clenching his fingers around the air in front of him; the _Condor_ shuddered. He remained like that for a few more minutes and just as Stork felt his heart rate slow, he looked up again from the controls.

Aerrow stared right into his eyes, his mouth stretching farther in a wicked sneer, "This will hurt. I promise," and he whipped his hands down.

The _Condor_ obeyed, seeming to fling itself downward in a sudden, violent motion and Stork gripped the controls for dear life. He heard nothing over the roaring wind through the shattered glass and sounds of his own screaming; saw nothing through the blinding white stars in his eyes. There was physical jolt as the ship hit and continued through the cloud layer, and he became aware that his death grip on the metal handles before him was all that kept him on his feet and in the ship.

He saw the red glow of the lava getting quickly brighter and gave a final, desperate pull upward on the ship's controls.


	5. Clear as Mud

**_You know what? This whole thing is just going to take a long time to write! Curses...and I hate to say it and get anyone's hopes up (including mine) but the next part (eep) should be easier to write._**

**_Sorry sorry sorry!_**

* * *

He was alone in the dark, a black void that stretched forever around him, nothing solid, no ground and yet he wasn't falling. He spun around trying to find something, anything, reassure himself that he was not _all_ alone. He saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing and a terrible thought wormed its way into his mind; maybe he was dead. But if he was dead he'd never see Piper or Radarr or Finn and Junko and Stork and the Condor ever again. It would mean that he'd left them to fight the war without him; he couldn't protect them anymore. And what about Starling, and Lynn and the others from the Talon Academy, he'd promised them…

No, something told him, not dead, just cut off from everything somehow.

Somehow.

That meant there was a reason, he just needed to figure out what that reason was. Then he froze, all thought terminated as a voice blew past him in the dark. It was a voice he'd heard only once, but a voice that no one could forget; a horrible, mocking, poisonous voice that sent shivers down his spine and made him want to run. The voice had almost a physical presence and it enveloped him like a cold wind. It spoke, loud in the void but he couldn't make out the words.

Piper: _"You started mumbling things but your voice sounded weird and none of us could understand you…"_

It laughed, loudly, mirthlessly, forcing horrible images of people being tortured, people cowering, and people in pain into his mind.

_'Yes,'_ it said,the words becoming suddenly clear, '_pain…you are my one exception…my one exception…let it begin…my one exception…your fault _Aerrow_…their pain, you're fault…one thousand years…solitude…pain, eternal suffering…it has begun, now feel her pain._

A bolt of hot, searing pain ripped its way up from his left hip to his right shoulder and he screamed amid the Voice's laughter, arching his back and grabbing his head with both arms. Slowly, new pains made themselves known and he screamed each time, even at the little ones. The Voice's power made them so much more painful than they should have been, the pain throbbing with his heartbeat, unrelenting in the void.

A white-washed wall streaked past her, blending in with the mists in her head. Piper closed her eyes, felt sick as the world suddenly lurched sideways. A wave of muffled noises assaulted her ears; she couldn't concentrate on the words and so stopped trying, letting her mind wander. She felt a cold hand on her shoulder, realized she was lying on her stomach, and then heard soothing but unclear words whispered in her ear. It was nice, she thought, and then, 'ow.'

There were two sharp jabs of pain near her other shoulder, but she couldn't muster the strength to look over or ask what happened. She settled back into her previous stupor, already forgetting about the pain, when it happened again, and again. Each new pain came farther down her back, leaving a long, stinging line of pain from her right shoulder to her left hip **(1)**; Piper wondered vaguely what was going on, but her thoughts wouldn't stay clear.

And then came the best, a spreading warmth along the line of pain, soothing the hurt, erasing it. Her tired mind put the feeling with a colour, making the mists in her head lilac purple; she fell into unconsciousness **(2)**.

0o0o

Piper woke up to a sea of royal purple. She sat up slowly, her entire body stiff and sore, and focused her eyes, realizing the 'sea of purple' was a thick curtain hanging around her bed.

"Hospital," she mumbled aloud.

She slipped off the hard bed, stumbled a little on the landing. Piper looked down at herself; she was dressed in a simple off-white dress, no shoes, and her headband lying on the night table a few feet away. She straightened the dress, grabbed the headband and stepped around the curtain. She collided with one of the nurses, the same one who'd looked after Aerrow…yesterday?

"And where do you think you're going?" asked the startled woman, placing a restraining hand on Piper's upper arm.

"I have to find my friends. Are they okay?"

"Dear me, dear me, Sky Knights are all the same," the nurse mumbled to herself before gently spinning Piper around and leading her back behind the curtain, "You can go if you check out physically healthy; even the Crystal healing goes wrong some times. Your friends aren't going anywhere; they've waited long enough for you to wake up. Now, sit, and hold out your arm!"

0o0o

"Piper, how are you feeling?" Finn asked once they were outside.

The exchanges in the hospital had been brief; no one had wanted to stay in that building for any longer than necessary. Now they walked along a quiet trail in the woods behind the Atmosia General, trying to replace the foul sterile smell with open air and leaves.

"I'm fine," she answered, "but Aerrow isn't! What happened to him? What's wrong with him?" She turned to Stork, eyes wide and desperate, begging him to tell her what possible disease their leader had so she could fix him. "Is it mind worms?"

Stork shook his head, remembering what he had seen, what had caused the _Condor_ to fall in the first place. It hadn't been Aerrow at all, he was sure.

Piper turned to the other three, "Junko? Radarr, Finn? Do you-?"

"Nope"

"Sorry"

Radarr shook his head sadly from his position on Finn's shoulder.

Piper turned back to the trail ahead, her eyes on the muddy ground. The group walked in silence for a few more moments. Slowly, then with more enthusiasm, Piper began to nod, making the others aware that she was on the brink of some breakthrough.

"The library!" She finally cried, jumping in front of the others and turning to stare at each of them. "Come on! There's lots of books on mental breakdowns and diseases at the library! One of them has to tell us what's happened to Aerrow!"

She jumped again, spun on her heel and ran, the others slightly baffled but following. Piper broke through the trees first, skidding to a halt on the dusty cobblestones and nearly running into one of the Sky Knight Council members; the others had the same results.

The old men of the Council nearly tripped over their own feet in their haste to avoid collision by backing up. Two of the four put their hands over their hearts, glaring at the Storm Hawks Minus One.

The Head of the Council just shook his head, looking slightly amused and rearranged his too small glasses on his nose, studying each of their faces.

"Storm Hawks," he greeted with a slight bow of his head, "but where's Aerrow?"

"Ehm…" Piper hesitated.

"Well…" Finn started, and then froze, lowering his eyes.

Stork rubbed the back of his neck, turning his head away, not even trying to explain.

Junko looked at each of his friends, thought of Aerrow, about the library, about the Council, and broke down.

"We don't know!" he cried, throwing his hands up to his eyes to hide the sudden, violent tears, "Something happened to him and now he's gone! And he was acting really weird and he…he…!" he couldn't say 'jumped,' so he let himself trail off.

"Oh?" the Head of Council took a step back from the emotional Wallop, both surprised and a tiny bit afraid. His mind was racing, trying to make sense of everything the Wallop had said, and about the kids' reluctance to say anything, he feared the worst but told himself not to jump to conclusions, anything else could have happened. But probably not.

* * *

**(1)_ I know I didn't explain it very clearly but Aerrow and Piper are feeling the same pain. The Darkness is making Aerrow feel what Piper is._**

**(2)_ Confusing again! Sorry. Piper's having surgery only with pretty lights and crystals instead of creepy metal tools. 'Cause it's the Atmos y'know, crystal healing is possible.  
_**


	6. To Tell a Tale, To Spread Some Fear

The Storm Hawks were led back to the Council Hall, the pace of the old men too slow for them, and to a locked room at the back; no one wanted to be interrupted. The Head of Council sat at a high-backed armchair in the far end of the room, the other members of the Council slipping into slightly lower but still comfortable chairs. Four fold-up chairs were offered to the Storm Hawks who refused, too anxious to sit. They stood side by side in the centre of the room, as they had the first time they'd spoken to the Council, except that Aerrow wasn't with them.

"Now," said Oliver, the Head of Council, "start at the beginning. Tell us why you're one member short and why you were running through the forest in the first place."

Piper took a deep breath; closing her eyes, she told the Council everything she had told Aerrow after he'd been let out of the hospital. She told about her fight with Finn, about Aerrow's seizure, about talking to him on the boarding ramp, his hands freezing cold against hers. "He said it was just a hallucination."

The Council nodded; Stork continued, voice shaking, wringing his hands and twitching.

He told about the dinner, how their leader didn't look well, didn't eat. He told about Piper's book.

Oliver interrupted at this point, "A green book that only you could open?" he asked Piper.

"I don't know about the last part, but it was green. And it did seem to glow with some sort of dark…essence."

"Hmm," the Council leader sunk deep into thought, waved his hand for the pilot to continue; Stork did.

He told about Aerrow laughing, about the lights, about Piper trying the Solaris crystal. He told about noticing the lack of stars as Piper had, that they had only imagined the darkness. He told them what the not-Aerrow had said, how he'd looked. He told about the invisible energy that shattered the window, about Aerrow's eyes, about the jumping.

Everyone got really quiet when he said that, moisture returning to Junko's still-red eyes, and entering Piper's.

And then Stork told everyone what only he had seen, about the dark aura around Aerrow, about the floating, about what he'd said then, and promised. He told about the magic, controlling the _Condor_, about almost killing them all.

"So its true then" Oliver whispered to himself, dropping his head into his hands, "it has finally happened."

"What do you mean 'finally happened'? You knew this would happen?" Piper shouted.

"What exactly _is_ happening? All I really know is that Aerrow went crazy and somehow he can fly?" Finn said before the Head of Council could answer.

Oliver looked sideways at each of the other Council members, he sighed, face scrunched up in pain.

"This is a story that I hoped only to tell my successor." He looked up into each of the Storm Hawk's faces, "I think you should really sit down now."

They sat, each on the edges of the chair, ready to jump up, but they sat.

"One thousand years ago Atmos was just adapting to air travel, and just embracing the full use of crystals. Some Terras were advancing quicker than others, leaving many feeling useless and vulnerable; this prompted hatred and anger in too many people. A creature of darkness was born, the hate, anger and fear fueling its energies. It grew incredibly powerful in a very short time and began to take actions against all people, humans and non-humans alike, creating more hate, more fear. It was a master manipulator, knowing a person's innermost desires and fears, playing on them until it got what it needed.

"Of course, many people tried to kill it, and for the next hundred years they were the only ones the Darkness ever killed-"

"It must have had some sort of compassion then, if it didn't kill."

"Hardly, the Darkness simply recognized that if it killed, that would be one less person it could hurt, one less source of the energy it needed."

"Wait, what does a thousand year old _thing_ have to do with Aerrow, now?"

"Patience. Enough people had died for everyone else to know that he Darkness could not be killed. However this did not deter the faith one man and his wife. Fabian and Ave, the elected leaders of Terra Cyclonia, came up with a plan that would rid the Atmos of the Darkness."

"Cyclonia? _Cyclonia_ stopped this thing?"

Oliver nodded, "Fabian was the last 'good' Cyclonian. If I could tell this story without you interrupting, you will understand what is happening now.

"Fabian and his wife came up with a plan that would rid Atmos of the Darkness forever, but they needed something they could not ask for. They called a meeting on this Terra and Fabian explained his plan; people called him insane and they accused him of being a murderer. Fabian was neither of these things and in the end the other leaders let him try. He tested them, and met with the one person he wished he would not meet. He took this person, his best friend, Tylur, into this room and further explained his plan.

"This is your connection to Aerrow. Fabian knew the Darkness could never be truly destroyed, so he planned to seal it in someone; Tylur was the perfect candidate. Aerrow is a direct descendant of his."

"Then that means-!" Piper gasped, leaping to her feet, "the Darkness is-! How?"

Oliver closed his eyes again, the fingers on his right hand massaging his temple, "From what I can figure it was a combination of him destroying the Aurora stone, the one thing that seemed to repel the Darkness, and touching your crystal Piper. Where did you get it?"

"It was my mother's."

The old man nodded, "We have to alert the other Terras, and this one for that matter…" he paused, turning over a thought in his mind, "but we can't tell them everything. Storm Hawks, we need you to contact all the other Sky Knights, tell them to come here. We're going to tell the Terras that Aerrow has been affected by a strange crystal and that he's dangerous, but the Sky Knights need to know what they're fighting, or at least what to run away from."

"Yes," said one of the other Council members, speaking for the first time, "from what you've told us and what Oliver had explained, it seems this Darkness-Aerrow is not very strong yet; he will try to gather more strength before he makes his first move."

0o0o

He wandered slowly around the market on Terra Rex, people smiling at him, hurrying away when he sneered back. He observed everyone, feeling their levels of pain or anger, reveling in it. He walked slowly toward a small, run-down old building, drawn by the lingering negative feelings flowing around it like a cool breeze. He stepped off the road and into the shaded doorway. He could see three men inside, leaning over a table in the centre of the room, talking in whispers. The man in the far corner looked up and noticed him, "You lost, kid?"

He didn't answer, but started walking deeper into the building toward the closest man.

"Look, you want sumthin' from us?" the second man demanded, tightening his hands into fists. The others walked around the table to stand behind him, cracking their knuckles.

"As a matter of fact," he said his voice that of the boy's and his own combined; he placed his hand on the thick muscled arm of the nearest man, "I do."

The man reached up to smack away his hand and froze, gagging. He began to tremble and the other men backed away from them, expressions horrified. The man fell to his knees, looked at the one stealing his energy; dark, cruel eyes met darker, crueler ones. The man fell to the floor, his eyes shut, barely breathing.

The Darkness looked up from the man slowly to glare at the remaining two thugs, frozen by the corner. He stepped forward and repeated the process twice more, leaving the three half-dead men sprawled on the dusty floor of the abandoned building.

He continued to walk the streets, logic telling him that, very soon, a panic would start as the Storm Hawks spread their story. And a few moments later an announcement blasted out of the loudspeakers all along the square, warning people that, due to the sudden explosion of an unstable crystal, Aerrow of the Storm Hawks was compromised, dangerous, to be avoided at all costs.

The people who recognized his body went into a panic, warning others who didn't and stampeding around. He stopped where he was in the centre of the square, threw back his head and laughed, their voice echoing crazily off of the houses. He stopped and looked around, noticing a couple frozen a little ways off. The tall, white haired woman clutched the hand of her son, holding him close, scared to lose him in the swarming mass of terrified people. He walked over, unnoticed by the two, and asked if the woman needed any help. She turned and screamed, whipping her son behind her, standing over him protectively.

"What would you do if your son disappeared," he asked, waving a hand in front of her eyes.

Immediately the woman threw her hands up to protect her face; when she realized he hadn't touched her she put her hands behind her again with the intent of grabbing her son and running. Her hands met only air and she turned around, her eyes sweeping over the boy but not seeing him. She scanned frantically around the little bubble the three of them were in, and then looked up into the crowd, fearing the worst.

"Mommy?" the young boy cried, grabbing a tiny handful of the woman's pants and tugging on it to get her attention. She gave no sign that she felt him; she turned back to the Darkness,

"What did you do to him?" she shrieked, oblivious to the child crying and shouting, clutching at her leg.

"To him, nothing" he stepped through the crowd and disappeared, searching for another victim.

* * *

**_Ah! I'm so cruel :(_**

**_Too bad though I guess.  
_**


	7. Guinea Pigs Have Nightmares Too

_**So so sorry this took so long! I have valid excuses! And um, holy crap lookit the word count! (Am I forgiven?)**_

* * *

The Sky Knights and their squadrons were all packed into the Council Hall. They huddled together in little groups, no one straying far from their teammates. Silence hung in the air with near physical weight; most of them had heard the Council's official explanation, a few of them could guess why exactly they were there.

"As some of you may have gathered, the Sky Knight Aerrow of the Storm Hawks has not been affected merely by a crystal" Oliver said, breaking the silence into a thousand shards, "it is something much worse. You don't need all the facts, but what I shall tell you is enough. Aerrow, through a series of deeply related incidents, has come under the influence of a Dark being. He is extremely dangerous and is not to be engaged unless the Storm Hawks are present. From what we can gather he is still really weak; use caution for even in his weakest moment he can still overpower any of you. He will use you to try to further his own strength so…try not to let him. If he attacks you, your best bet would be to fly here immediately; the Aurora Stone repels the Darkness."

"So…what exactly are we supposed to _do_ if we find him? You said don't attack and if he attacks to run…?" someone from within the crowd asked.

Oliver sighed, rubbed his temple with his right hand, "Just…report his position, call the Storm Hawks or myself and fall back. There's not much we _can_ do as of yet. I need more time to figure some things out."

"Why do the Storm Hawks need to be there? They're just children-"

"_First_ of all," the Head of Council cut in, stopping Harrier mid-sentence, "Aerrow is their Sky Knight and friend, they know him better than anyone and no doubt the Darkness will employ any knowledge of Aerrow's useful to it. Secondly, the Storm Hawks are as connected to this story as Aerrow is. I will not explain myself further."

There was blast of static from a radio laying on one of the desks in the corner of the room, cutting off another question.

"Sir, he's here," the voice shouted through the static, faint screams decipherable in the background, "Aerrow! He's…he's doing things to people! Everyone's running around screaming crazy things! No one's making any sense! Those of us left are all hiding in-"

"Wherever you're currently hiding we'll find you," Oliver spoke, lifting the speaker from its cradle, "you need to tell us what Terra you're on!"

"Terra Rex! Please, you have to hurry! He'll find us any-" the transmission cut off for a moment, then came back more static prone than before, "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?"

"Yes, calm down. I'm still here. We're sending a Squadron to Rex now-"

"Hello? Please! Is anyone there? Someone answer me…oh no! He's here!" they heard the sound of the radio speaker hitting some hard surface, "NO! Please! Leave me alone! Don't-!" the man screamed. It was long and drawn out, full of agony; it sent shivers down the spines of everyone in the room.

There was a beat of silence as the connection vanished.

"Everyone will return to their home Terras. Mount a defense as best you can, mental as well as physical. Prepare the people for what's coming, but do not, under any circumstances, admit the truth about Aerrow. Storm Hawks, Rex Guardians, set course for Terra Rex. Do what you can."

"I know this is deathly serious and all," Finn said, resting his elbows on the bridge table, "but why do I get the feeling we're the guinea pigs?"

"Probably because we are, technically," Piper answered, looking up from the strange green book, "We're going to be the first ones fighting Aerrow…er, the Darkness…uh, Darkness-Aerrow? Never mind. The Head of Council's right. We do know Aerrow best and we do have the greatest chance of surviving an attack from him…it…uh, _them_."

"What do you think he meant when he said 'we are as connected to this story as Aerrow is?'"

"Um…I have absolutely no idea. You know, we should probably be coordinating with the Rex Guardians instead of asking pointless questions we can't answer. Stork, try and get them on the radio, tell them its okay to land on the _Condor_."

He did so and soon the regal Guardians strode onto the bridge, led by Harrier, his chin held high.

"Storm Hawks," he greeted, his voice pompous as ever, but lacking its previous animosity.

"Thanks Harrier. Well, we were just talking and we thought we'd better have a plan before we get to Rex. Any suggestions?" Piper said, standing up and closing the book.

The Sky Knight shook his head, "However, we would like some more information on what's happened, if you will."

"Well, Harrier…it's exactly what the Head of Council told you happened: Aerrow's being controlled by a Darkness."

"No one has explained _how_. But you know, don't you?"

"Only sort of, I guess…its kinda confusing…" Piper looked up from wringing her hands, saw that the Guardians weren't going to accept that answer, "okay, well-"

The ship gave a sudden, violent lurch, sending everyone crashing to the floor. It gave Piper a way out of her explanation; she turned to the pilot, "Stork what was that?"

"I'm not sure," he said, turning to look at the radar scanner, "nothing on the scopes. It's probably any number of horrible things! Like-"

"Okay Stork," Piper interrupted, "we get the point. It was probably just a crosswind. Anyway it gave me an idea. Here's the plan: after we find Aerrow and do a little recon, the Rex Guardians will fly out behind him while we go face to face. Once he's surrounded we'll try to immobilize him. I still have a bunch of Paralyzer stones in my room, everyone grab a few and we'll do this…as soon as we get to Rex anyway. Any objections? Anyone other than Stork? No? Great!"

They flew in relative silence the rest of the way, the two squadrons keeping to themselves.

"We're here" Stork announced some time later.

"Good. Keep below the top of the Terra; we don't want Aerrow to see us. Finn and I are going to go do some recon in the city, see if we can find him."

"We may have been told to work with you," Harrier said, "but that doesn't mean you can order us around. Are we just supposed to sit here and wait until you _summon_ us?"

"I'm sorry Harrier, you're right. We should be working together. But we do need as few people as possible to scout…how about you come with us and the rest of your squadron can prepare with Junko, Stork and Radarr in case we need help?"

He folded his arms across his chest, leaning back on one heel and looked at her appraisingly; "If we must."

0o0o

She crouched behind a long-fallen tree on the edge of the city, Finn and Harrier hiding behind similar pieces of debris. Piper rested her elbows on the log, holding a set of peepers to her eyes. She swept her eyes back and forth, surveying the chaos she couldn't quite believe…People were running everywhere, screaming and attacking anyone they came into contact with. A few people were sitting perfectly still, staring at the scenes before them or, she thought, _through_ them. Two or three buildings seemed to have caught fire but no one paid the flames any attention. She lowered the peepers and turned to Finn; her eyes met his and she understood the disbelieving fear she saw in them.

"Aerrow did this?"

She shook her head, "the Darkness did this. Come on, I don't think he's here. Let's check the other end of town."

They crept through the back alleys, avoiding most of the people in the city. Anyone they did meet paid them not the slightest attention, running from their own invisible or imagined demons.

"See anything?" Piper asked, stopping at the edge of a building, laying a hand on the corner.

Finn shook his head, lowered his crossbow from peering around. Harrier motioned likewise, checking around the corner. He pulled back sharply throwing his hands out to block the woman who was suddenly in front of him. He caught her by the shoulders and she stopped, staring up into his eyes,

"Have you seen him?" she cried, "Have you seen my son? I can't find him! Help me find him!"

"Wait, hold on! You mean this kid here?" Finn asked her as a small boy ran up to them crying "Mom!"

The woman whirled around, her eyes scanned the brick corridor, "Where?"

"Here" he said, pushing the boy out in front of her.

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" she was suddenly furious, "My boy is missing and you're passing off a couple of _shadows_ as my _son_? If you won't help me than-"

She ran off again, screaming what could only be her son's name, the terrified, confused and almost hysterical boy following after her.

"Um…I guess this is what that guy meant by everyone screaming crazy things-"

"There!" Piper shouted, seeing what looked like a flash of black lightening and pointing to the Stadium visible over the tops of the houses, "that'd be our best bet for finding Aerrow. Come on!"

She didn't wait for an answer, took off running, the others hurrying after. They slowed as they got to the stadium doors, running crouched down, weapons held at the ready. Pausing in front of the door, Piper looked Finn, "He's got to be in here. Call it in."

She turned to Harrier, "You ready?"

He nodded in affirmation, tightening his grip on his old-fashioned sword. Piper slipped her slender fingers through the crack between the doors, pulling one open a fraction; she peeked through, saw nothing. Opening the door a tiny bit farther she stuck her shoulders through to get clear view of the entire stadium; she saw nothing. Dejectedly she sat back, letting the door swing shut, "I was wrong. He's not there. Let's search somewhere else."

All three of them stood up, disappointed but still determined, they turned to leave and froze.

"Going so soon?" Aerrow had his arms folded across his chest, glaring at them, blocking the way out. They scrambled backwards, falling through the double doors, weapons temporarily forgotten. Finn and Piper stumbled into the stadium grounds, running far away from the doors to get a better vantage point while they waited for the _Condor_; they whipped around, staff and crossbow out and ready to fire. Piper gasped, Harrier was on the ground in front of the doors and, halfway across the stadium, neither she nor Finn could get to him before Aerrow did!

Harrier looked up from where he'd fallen on the ground, he silently cursed his instinctive reaction to run; running never helped anyone. He searched around with his eyes, spotting his sword in the dirt just out of his reach. The doors burst open before he could move and Aerrow strode in, staring maliciously at the blonde haired Sky Knight who had nothing to defend himself with.

"Hello, Harrier," Aerrow said darkly, walking ever closer.

Harrier's eyes went wide and then he jumped to his feet, lunging for his sword. He grabbed the leather-covered handle and spun around and up, throwing out the sword in front of him to ward off any attack from the 'boy.' But Aerrow wasn't in front of him any more; he felt a hand on his shoulder. He resisted the urge to scream as the armour under the hand froze, sending waves of cold pain through his entire shoulder; Aerrow pushed down and, responding to the pressure-pain, Harrier crumpled to his knees.

"Brave, proud, and stubborn…fearless?" the Darkness said, his voice still partly Aerrow's. He closed his eyes, melted the ice, and stepped fully behind the man, placed his other hand on Harrier's other shoulder. He leaned in close to the man's head,

"What's Harrier's greatest fear?" he asked rhetorically, "What's this big secret he keeps locked away? You know Sky Knight they say a break from reality is good for the soul; how about a vacation, a permanent little trip down Memory Lane?"

_Terra Rex, ~27 years previous _Age of Heroes, _Harrier POV_

He was 10, the 'big one-oh' as everyone said. He didn't get what was so special about it. Yes he was a year older, but 10 was still just a number. Just a number…

He raced along the dirt track at the edge of the wood, trees on one side, a small stretch of field and then endless sky on the other. Harrier held a new toy skimmer at arms length, letting it ride the small breeze created by his running.

He laughed and shouted, maneuvering his skimmer around imaginary friends and enemies, shouting orders and tactical advice, making shooting noises with his mouth.

What he wouldn't give to really be able to fly. As he ran his mind superimposed another image over the familiar earth; he was on his own skimmer, the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Around him flew four other people on similar, though less regal rides.

'_My own squadron_,' he thought. '_Someday I'll be a Sky Knight, I'll be a protector. I'll give the people of this Terra the safety they deserve for generations! Until I'm blind from old age! Until I can't fly anymore! The Cyclonians won't dare tangle with me!_'

All of a sudden his fantasy disappeared, sending him crashing back to reality like a broken skimmer; he smacked into the large, slightly muscled chest of the last person he'd ever want to save as a Sky Knight. It was Markus, with his ever present gang hanging behind him.

"Well what have we here? The little wannabe Sky Knight with a baby toy, aren't you a little old for that?" the older boy jeered.

His gang of five smirked behind him, nudging each other in anticipation. Harrier glared up at him, this twelve year old boy who'd been bullying him forever, "What do you want Markus?"

He laughed, "You're ten now Harrier, you know what that means? It means you're able to join our gang."

He wasn't expecting _that_ of all things; he could only stare incredulously up at the bully. And apparently Markus' cronies weren't either,

"What?"

"No! You can't-"

Markus held up a hand, they all stopped.

"So?" he asked Harrier, "You in? You'll have to go through an initiation first of course" he said, grinning threateningly.

Harrier raised an eyebrow, clutched tightly to the toy skimmer, "No thanks," he turned to leave.

"Oh. Of course; I should have known you'd be too scared to even hear what you had to do. My bad."

He whipped around, "I'm not scared!"

"Then you'll do it, no matter what 'it' is?"

Harrier glared for a moment, then nodded, "I'll show you! I'm not scared; I can do anything you ask me to!"

Markus smirked, "Fine. I'll show you what you need to do. Follow me."

0o0o

"You want me to what?"

"You said you could do it. You been lying to me, Harrier? You too scared?"

"No! It's just…this is _wrong_."

"You can give it back later if you want, but you have to steal first. Prove to me you're not a coward."

Harrier clenched his fists, staring into the dark, gaping pit that was a storm cellar. The light only penetrated as far as the first few steps…he didn't like the dark.

One of the boys shoved a flashlight at him; Harrier gripped it and, with everyone watching, crept down the stairs. It was pitch black, the beam from the flashlight tiny and focused and, despite all his attempts not to he began to imagine all of the things that could be in there, waiting to reach out and grab him.

'_Just grab it and get out_' he said to himself, '_there's nothing in here but me, just grab it and get out..._'

He swung the flashlight around, aiming it over dusty shelves and neatly stacked boxes, his heart pounding in his chest. He moved farther into the cellar, peeking into boxes and looking up and down the shelves, around glass bottles filled with preserves, looking for the stupid thing that Markus wanted.

"Hey!" there was a muffled shout from outside, it sounded like a grown man's voice, "You kids get away from there!"

"RUN!" Markus yelled, leading the others in the ensuing flight. With no one to hold it open, the heavy door slammed shut, locking Harrier in, other than the beam of the flashlight, total darkness. He screamed. And screamed again, clutching the flashlight to his chest, waiting for Markus to come back and get him or the man to hear him and rescue him; but Markus was the bully-coward, he didn't come back, and the cellar was a storm cellar, deep under ground; the man heard nothing. When he couldn't scream any longer, though still too afraid to move, Harrier reduced to whimpering in between great gasping breaths. Soon after, the light began to flicker, and eventually quit completely.

He was found late the next afternoon when the man came in to look for a jar of pickled something, laying on the floor, curled into a fetal position, great sobs wracking his little body.

"I won't break another rule ever, I promise," he kept whispering through the sobbing.

It took weeks for him to get over that experience that first time, but now he was being forced to relive it again and again until the Darkness let him go.

_Present Day_

Piper stared across the stadium; Aerrow's, no, the Darkness' words had been spoken too quietly for her to hear, she couldn't tell what was happening. She wished she hadn't dropped the peepers at the entrance door when she fell through but there was nothing she could do about that now; she turned to Finn,

"What's he doing?"

Finn had the crossbow's scope up to his eye, "I don't really know. It looks like he's just talking to him," he reported, confused. He adjusted the scope, "No…Harrier's not moving! And he looks scared, really scared."

Piper whipped her head back to the small figures, "We have to do something, we can't just stand here!"

"Piper! It'll kill all of us! We have to wait for the _Condor_."

"No-" she stepped forward, about to run to help their older friend when he screamed. Piper, already having been frightened before, freaked, "SHOOT! Shoot him Finn!"

"I can't shoot Aerrow!"

"He's not Aerrow! Shoot him!"

Harrier screamed again, strengthening Finn's resolve; he whipped his crossbow into position, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger. The energy bolt soared through the air with ease, Finn's aim dead-on. The bolt hit Aerrow's shoulder, sending him reeling backwards and away from Harrier; the Rex Guardian slumped to ground and lay still. Even across the stadium with nothing to magnify her sight, Piper saw the bolt hit Aerrow's shoulder, but she hated more what she saw next; the blue energy crackled and jumped like lightening over his skin and his shoulder seemed to glow. But then the glow stopped, seemed to be sucked into faint black aura around Aerrow.

_Not good_.

The Darkness turned to look directly at Finn; he ignored Harrier's unconscious body and started toward them.

"I told you!" Finn whimpered.

"Finn, this is no time to be a coward." Piper said, feeling strangely calm.

"Coward? I'm not a coward! My fear is completely reasonable! You saw what just happened!"

She turned to look back at Aerrow, still coming toward them; he was smiling now, but not the kind of smile she was used to seeing on his usually kind face. She shivered and fear worked its way back into her brain.

"Y'know, maybe it would be a good idea to run."

The problem is, she thought, there was her, and there was Finn and there was the door that was on the opposite side from where they were. If they spilt up, one of them was bound to be hurt.

Piper grabbed Finn's wrist and started backing up, pulling him with her as she headed for the bleachers, ready to use them as an escape if she needed to. She froze when her hand encountered the cool surface of the wall; no where to run, her other hand tightened around the staff.

"Hello Finn, Piper" the Darkness growled at them.

She felt Finn tense and braced herself as well narrowing her eyes almost to slits, not quite ready to take pain without some sort of warning. With her eyes almost shut, her hearing seemed stronger, she heard her heart's frantic beating, could almost hear Finn's; and then heard the most wonderful sound. Her eyes popped open,

"Hello _Condor_!" she breathed, as the giant airship flew over them.

Aerrow turned to glare up at the ship, at the two skimmers flying in circles around it; they dove down. Finn took the Darkness' distraction and used it, shoving Piper forward and running with her out to where Harrier lay in the dirt. He heard Aerrow behind them, and then crystal shots being fired.

One of the skimmers landed in front of them and Junko hopped off, scooping up the unconscious Sky Knight and yelling at the others to jump on. Once seated Junko took off, Harrier slumped in the seat behind him, and flew straight into the _Condor_'s hangar.

The Darkness stared up at the ship, enraged. He thought he'd destroyed it but this was just as well; there were now twice as many people on board and if the ship was that strong he could do this over and over until it _did_ break. However…

He jumped, using his newly obtained energy to keep himself up and faced the ship head on. He spoke quietly but he knew they would hear him,

"Come and face me. Running will do you no good for soon my power will be replenished and it shall encompass your entire world."

Two skimmers and a heliscooter flew out to meet him; Piper, Junko and Finn.

"What did you do with Aerrow?" Piper shouted at him.

"I killed him" he answered simply.

"But the Councilman said you didn't kill anyone!"

"Aerrow was my one exception. He died for keeping me prisoner, for helping Fabian. You should know it was even more painful than usual; his screams were deliciously heartbreaking." He laughed.

All three gasped, tears springing forward, spilling onto their cheeks unhindered by pride or disbelief. Then the Darkness turned, leaving their pain to fester on its own and flew off on his next personal mission.

* * *

_**Crap ending perhaps, anyone guess what comes next? It seems I've upped the dial on 'evil' here didn't **_**I? _Apology? *debates* hm...no. ;)_**


	8. Not the Same Enemy

_**Um, I have excuses as per usual: Studying for exams, Dreams about exams [there was a Nightcrawler in street clothes and we were both about 7 yrs old and we had to take a social sciences exam in my grandmother's spare bedroom, weird huh?], Stress about exams, Writer's Block resulting from the stress of studying...the whole picture, y'know? I just now broke through that box and it may not be so good but...here you go.**_

* * *

Piper walked slowly onto the bridge, her head deliberately held high, aware, however, that her eyes were still red and puffy from crying. She'd forced herself together long enough to make sure Harrier was physically fine and see him to Starling's spare bedroom, where he lay still, almost comatose, before she locked herself in her room and let her emotions take over. She'd allowed herself a good half hour of crying before pulling herself back to the present and locking all emotion behind a thick mental wall.

She looked around the room without speaking, taking in the others' hopeless expressions. Radarr chirped softly and padded over to her; she laid a hand affectionately on his head before helping him onto her shoulder where he clung a little too tightly to her neck.

"So-" her voice cracked and she swallowed past the lump in her throat, "so, um, I thought maybe we should head back to Atmosia and…ex- explain…what happened."

Finn turned to stare, eyes wide and wet and Stork nodded but she got no other reaction. Piper walked over to the round table, Radarr jumping down to sit next to her, and pulled out the scroll on which she'd written everything she remembered the Head of Council saying about the Darkness and its history. She scanned the document once and then closed her eyes against an onslaught of fresh tears; Aerrow was dead. There was nothing she could do to fix him, no way to save him; was there a point to fighting now?

Of course, she forced the doubts and depressive thoughts away; they were a Sky Knight squadron. There was always a possibility that one of them could…but she had always forced those kinds of thoughts away. Of all of them, she had expected Aerrow to walk away from the war unscathed, but it wasn't as if she had considered any of the others to die either.

Radarr whined and rested a hand on her arm, trying to comfort her. Piper gave him a weak grin and forcibly wiped away the hot tears; she'd had her half hour to mourn. Now, she needed to find a way to defeat the Darkness. As she ran through everything she knew about it one small, venomous thought wormed its way into her mind: where would the Darkness go when they sealed it, now that they had no host?

0o0o

Cyclonis stared down at her fingers, poised on the keys of her crystal machine, seeing but not seeing.

"_-a lonely girl who desperately wants a friend."_

"_I don't have time for friends; I have a world to conquer!"_

A world to conquer; it was her duty, her destiny. It was her destiny to destroy the free Atmos and raise it up as part of the Cyclonian Empire. It was her duty to defeat the Sky Knights and take control of the world, to complete the task set by every other Cyclonis before her.

No, she didn't have time for friends.

Cyclonis sighed and glared at the keys as if it was their fault she had had a life she didn't want scripted for her. She clenched her jaw and forced the thoughts out of her head; she needed to focus…focus…on what? Another scheme, another plot to get rid of the Storm Hawks, to clear the way to total domination of the Atmos; it was her duty.

She took her pale fingers off the machine's controls and held out a hand. The machine sensed the motion and dropped a single crystal within her reach. She grabbed it and the machine let it go, retracting the metal arm; Cyclonis stared at the crystal, analyzing the dark veins in the green stone.

Hypnosis might work. It would take the Storm Hawks out of the way and, even more fun with its slightly ironic twist; force the Sky Knights to wonder why the Storm Hawks had betrayed them right before they're eliminated. Perfect, she thought **(1)**.

Cyclonis whipped around, an angry scowl contorting her face as the throne room doors banged open. A single Talon soldier staggered through, gasping and sweat soaked.

"Master," he croaked, "there's…an intruder…in the South quadrant."

She almost rolled her eyes, "So, send out a squadron and bring him to me or make sure he gets a nice trip to the Wastelands."

"But, I did, Master. They haven't reported back and their skimmers aren't showing up the radar."

This caught her attention, "How many intruders did you say there were, for sure?"

"J-just one, Master Cyclonis."

"Hmm, and you're sure it's not the _Condor_?"

"Um…no Master, but it doesn't seem big enough to be an airship cruiser."

"That ship isn't exactly huge."

"No Master, but-"

"Fetch Snipe and tell him to take care of our unwanted guest. And don't interrupt me unless it's absolutely important."

"Yes, Master, of course, Master," he turned and scurried off, the door slamming shut behind him.

"You think Snipe will be able to handle it alone?" The Dark Ace asked, slightly sarcastic, stepping calmly through the recessed doorway to the left of the crystal machine.

"What's the matter Dark Ace? Are you jealous that I sent him instead of you?"

His eyes widened before he managed to compose himself, "Of course not-"

"Were you questioning my order?"

"No Master-"

"Then I suggest you stop talking before you dig that hole any deeper, Dark Ace."

He bowed his head and leaned back against the wall, watching her work.

Cyclonis growled mentally, she hated having him watch her work; it made her feel like he didn't trust her, like he was watching and waiting for her to slip up.

Like earlier, she thought, and then rebuked herself. It was a single moment of weakness, a stupid, teenage reaction. It wouldn't happen again.

She grabbed a piece of parchment and a pencil from a closed container built into the crystal machine and unrolled the scroll across the keyboard. Holding the red pencil loosely in her right hand she began to sketch the Hypnosis crystal, hammering out details of her plan in her head before she wrote them down.

Cyclonis looked up even before the doors were thrown open a second time, "Master Cyclonis!"

She turned around to face the same Talon as before, "More bad news? Let me guess, Snipe failed."

"He stopped registering too. And the three others that went with him!" he started rambling, "Just like before, they just vanished! Nobody just vanishes like that! It's-"

"Quiet!" she shouted, startling the man into silence, "If you can't handle something as simple as this, go pack your things and get out of here. Otherwise, go get Ravess. Tell her to remain in constant radio contact. I want to know who or what this thing is. Go!"

Dark Ace stepped forward, "Master, Ravess is hardly capable-"

"Patience Dark Ace," Cyclonis held up a hand, cutting him off, "Ravess is merely a distraction; she is disposable and you, however, are not. Follow me."

She led him down several gloomy hallways lit by red crystal lanterns and then three sets of stairs, leveling off near the middle of the Terra. She swept along, shoes clicking against the metal floor, her staff clutched tightly in her hand, a pink-purple crystal already loaded and faintly glowing. Cyclonis stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to look at the older man; he raised an eyebrow. The young Master reached out with the hand not holding the staff and pressed against a metal plate on the wall. The plate moved back, working like a handle and a small section of the wall swung inwards, revealing a secret room.

Awed, the Dark Ace followed his Master into the hidden chamber where she immediately went over to a spongy wooden desk and picked up the speaker on a brand-new looking radio.

"Ravess?" she demanded, fiddling with the frequency dial.

Dark Ace tuned her out, eyes scanning the rest of the room. It wasn't made of metal plating like the rest of Cyclonia, but was carved from the Terra itself, the stone walls damp and slimy explaining the rotten table. Other than the desk and the radio, the only other equipment in here was an equally rotted chair in front of the desk and a periscope sticking through a circular passage in the roof. He walked over and rubbed tiny beads of moisture from the eyepiece before looking through it. It took a moment to focus and another to find Ravess, but he watched as she and her squadron flew out to meet their intruder. He tried to zoom in, see who it was but it was too far away, the magnified image nothing more than a hazy black smudge.

"-an't believe- Master, it's-" the radio lost reception for a moment, distorting the sharpshooter's words into impossible mumbling.

"Master!" Dark Ace interrupted as Cyclonis ordered Ravess to repeat what she'd just said, he stepped back, offering her the periscope.

Ravess and her Talons had split into two groups, surrounding the intruder and yet were forcing him closer to Cyclonia as if aware that Cyclonis was watching, waiting. Ravess had her bow aimed and ready but he still hadn't seen who the intruder was before he'd offered the periscope up; more static and garbled words burst from the radio, and he was itching to take another look.

"No…" Cyclonis murmured, more to herself than to him.

Something that sounded like a scream erupted from the radio.

Cyclonis took a step back, shaking her head, and then as if she couldn't bear to look away moved back to the periscope,

"No…" she repeated, "It…can't be…"

"Master?"

"It's the Sky Knight…its _Aerrow_...but- impossible."

Eyes still glued to the periscope, the obviously-not-Aerrow in range, Cyclonis saw him turn and smirk right at her.

* * *

**(1) 'History_' anyone? No? Meh._**

**_Remember (did I even say this?) I started this trying to explain why Cyclonia was evil in the first place (Ave), but...-Just forgot what I was gonna say...  
_**

**_Anyway, Cheers, and let's all hope the next chapter comes faster!_**


	9. Little Green Book

_**I hope someone's still reading this. **_

_**I'm sooo sorry for the two previous two month waiting periods. [Hopefully] That's behind us.**_

_**Summer school's good for something, hey? Gives me a couple hours with absolutely nothing to do but write...and draw, but write!**_

* * *

Piper sank down onto the stiff chair and shut her eyes; she'd just finished telling the Sky Knight Council about what had happened on Terra Rex and she was exhausted, mentally as well as physically.

The old men sat behind the high desk, staring in different directions as they thought through the new information. The Head of Council, who'd told her to call him Oliver, was staring at her.

"Piper," he said; her eyes flew open, "I know this is hard, and I know how you feel right now, but the best thing would be to go back to your ship and get some rest. You can't help anyone, and most certainly not yourself, when you're dead on your feet."

Piper stood up, about to argue, before she saw the logic in what the older man had said. She closed her mouth, nodded, and left the room, her steps the tiniest bit shaky.

But she couldn't sleep; she was exhausted but nevertheless restless.

Back on the _Condor_, Piper wandered the halls, head down, hugging herself tight. She thought about Aerrow and dying and what she was going to do when this was all over. Then she forced herself to think happy thoughts, or at least another, less morbid topic.

She paused outside Starling's spare bedroom, and then went in to see Harrier.

The Council had thought it was just as safe to leave him as it was to move him, and so here he was. Piper stepped into the room, the clicking of her shoes against the metal floor loud in the silence. The single, female Rex Guardian had stayed behind to look after her Sky Knight when the others left to see if they could help the people on Rex. Now, she turned to look at Piper, keeping her face neutral. She was holding a cloth to Harrier's forehead, keeping him cool as he thrashed amid his nightmares.

Piper opened her mouth to ask if there had been any change but before she could speak, the woman shook her head. Piper's shoulders slumped, she closed her mouth.

Not knowing what else to do, she turned about face and left. Her next stop was her own room. She grabbed the curious green book and headed for the bridge. She needed to take a break from all the morose, depressing thoughts swirling in her head; a puzzle seemed like a good idea.

She sat down at the round table, and dropped the book on the top. She stared at it.

When Aerrow had been in the hospital, but before she'd been allowed to see him, she had wandered the market on Atmosia, always staying close to the hospital. On her third circuit, she had come across a tiny book stall. Her book-worminess had pulled her closer and she'd scanned the small but varied selection.

Disappointed, she'd been about to leave when an old man with a crown of spiky gray hair and two gold hoops in his right ear had popped up from nowhere. He'd grabbed her arm and stared. Piper had been about to protest when the man release her and spoke, his voice high and creaky, "I like your necklace, girl. Stay…something to show you."

He'd disappeared again.

Confused, Piper had stayed where she was. The man came back, a good sized, brown paper package in his hand. He'd handed it to her, and nodded eagerly at her. Piper carefully unfolded the paper wrapping to reveal a hard-cover green book.

"Open it, girl," the old man had breathed, showing off a gold tooth as he smiled what night have been an encouraging smile.

Piper flipped it open and noticed the black haze, "What is this?"

"Oh-ho! Take it! Take it! Solve the riddle, girl!"

"But how much-?"

"No, no. This book is yours, it belongs to you!"

The man had pushed her on her way and vanished when she'd turned back.

And now, Piper sat on the empty bridge of the _Condor_, her best friend dead, his body controlled by a living darkness, trying to figure out the secret to reading the book.

She picked it up and flipped it over, trailing thin fingers on the cover's edges, along the creased spine, hoping something would happen. Nothing unusual; she set the book back on the table and opened to a random page. The same, odd black haze covered everything.

Disappointment flooded through her, coupling with the exhaustion to drown her in despair. Huffing, she slumped forward, banging her head on the table in hopes of a distraction.

But along with the stinging pain in her forehead came an unanticipated heat at the hollow of her throat. It was quickly building to an intolerable burn; gasping from the pain, she sat up as her hands flew to her throat. Her fingers wrapped around the sharp edge of her necklace.

Her crystal? The crystal her mother had given her, had said was special. But that crystal never did anything, it had no power.

The heat was gone, as if had never been. Piper slowly reached back and untied the knot that held the necklace in place. She wondered; holding it by the cord, she dangled the crystal above the book. The book only she could open.

The tiny blue crystal glowed faintly. She lowered it slightly, the glow got brighter and now she could feel the heat again through the cord, through the air. Piper took a deep, excited breath and dropped the crystal.

There was a flash, hot and white. She blinked the brights from her eyes and looked at the book. Everything seemed normal. No heat, the faintest glow from the crystal if it wasn't just remnants from the flash in her eyes. She looked closer.

It seemed the crystal had bonded with the book; it was attached, melted into the cover like a raised decoration.

Or a key.

Tentatively, she reached out and flipped the book open. The dark haze was gone, leaving slightly yellowed parchment and familiar black-inked Atmosian script to contrast it. Excitedly, she flipped to the first page,

"_The Dark Century_," it read, "_and Rebuilding Atmos_,

"_This knowledge was passed to use by our fathers, who were born in light and grew up to darkness._"

She skimmed. A chapter and several horrific events later she found what she was looking for.

"_Though many Terras focused inward on their economies and what little hadn't been destroyed by the Darkness, one Terra was entirely devoted to stopping it; Cyclonia, lead by Fabian and his wife Ave…_" she skimmed again, already knowing the rough history.

Piper heard the door open behind her but ignored it, the prospect of discovery too great.

"-_and Fabian revealed his Answer to the crowd. The crystal was small, thin, and cut to a triangle, the stone a dazzling blue._"

It was accompanied by a sketch. Her crystal…_Fabian's_ crystal!

"_But there was a dark side to the tiny stone; it required an energy that it, by itself, lacked. Two things it needed to work: a host, someone of a pure soul in which to seal the Darkness, and a sacrifice. The stone would use the wielder's energy along with its own or it would not work. No matter how Fabian had modified the crystal, it would not hold enough strength to render the sacrifice unnecessary…_"

Her excitement faded; they could save Aerrow- no, it was too late for that. They could save the Atmos, but whom else would they be forced to lose in doing so?

'What am I thinking? There's no choice, I can't put this on anyone else.'

Piper slid her hands under the book and stood, snapping it shut as she turned. The crystal popped free into her hand and she held it tightly, hidden in her fist; she walked over to Junko and Finn, standing by the door, talking in low voices.

"Guys?"

They looked at her.

"I know how to stop the Darkness. We just need to find it."

* * *

_**Hmm, is that a conclusion I see in the not-so-distant future?**_

_**Oh yeah, and I've deemed the "Good Ol' Black Gorge" chapter irrelevant, so I took it off. If you wanna read it for whatever reason...profile, email.**_


	10. Duty and Honour, Right?

**_It start off slow, gets better. Finishing what I started a couple chapters ago ;D_**

* * *

Piper stood staring out the window, her back straight, hands clasped behind her. She watched the increasingly angry clouds roiling above and below her as the _Condor_ flew. She heard Stork's breathing hitch and glanced out the corner of her eye, but she didn't turn around; he was looking at the clouds too, somehow managing to look frightened and upset but still strong all at once.

Piper kept her expression neutral as her eyes drifted back to the sky.

Ever since Rex, the weather had been getting steadily worse; the clouds thickening and darkening, then hard cold rain off and on. Now it was dry, but boiling green-black clouds blocked out any ray of sun attempting to shine in the Atmos.

The Darkness was getting stronger; stronger, but not strong enough to resist Fabian's crystal. Not as far as she knew anyway.

She hadn't said much about her plan to stop the Darkness; just enough to give the others hope. Right now, what they needed to do was find it, and she'd fill them in later, when it was too late for them to do anything to stop her.

Piper turned away from the window. She'd been standing still to long, she needed some other company.

The bridge door slid up and she stepped in the empty hallway, absently noting how gloomy it looked with only the occasional, tiny light to break the darkness.

She headed for Finn's room.

The door was open and she hesitated outside. The sharpshooter was hunched over his desk, head propped up on his elbow, fiddling with a radio. Knocking gently on the door frame, she stepped in, "Heard anything?"

Finn jerked upright, and turned swiftly to look at her. As the shock faded and his features returned to their previous weary state she saw how red his eyes were, dark circles thick, bruise-like. He rubbed his eyes.

"Not yet" he answered, heavily.

Piper sighed.

"Don't worry," Finn said, an odd note in his voice, "well find it. And even if we can't save Aerrow…we'll figure something out."

She wasn't used to Finn being this deep; it was kind of nice. Piper smiled at him and he nodded, his own lips curving up slightly.

"Thanks Finn."

"No problem. Just remember-" he froze; his hand flew back to the radio dial, twisting up the volume, "You hear that?"

Piper listened but heard only static, "Finn, do you think you need a break? I could take over-"

"Shh! Listen!"

More static, and then she heard it too. Piper leaned in closer to the radio, her head almost touching Finn's as he cranked the volume to its fullest.

The signal wasn't great, the audio faint and the voices were muffled by a loud rumbling she couldn't place, but the words she could pick out were enough to know.

"Cyclonia" she said, frowning.

"But…oh…"

"Fabian _Cyclonis_! Urgh, I should have known! Come on," she grabbed Finn's arm and dragged him with her as she headed for the bridge, "they could end up worse than those on Rex!"

0o0o

The usual red sky seemed unchanged, if not a little darker. They didn't question it.

Piper, with Finn and Junko beside her and Radarr leaning on the glass, glared out the window on the bridge. She didn't know what to expect and so didn't think about it, she concentrated solely on her sudden anger and the people around her. This thing controlling Aerrow had taken something important from her, hurt dozens of innocents, and threatened her friends; she had a way to prevent anyone else from hurting and she fully intended to use the chance now given to her.

She looked down at the map in her hands, glanced at the various instruments on the helm, and plotted their position.

"Not far now," she said.

Piper looked back at the clouds in front of them, waiting for the Terra to come into view. The slight fog pulled back and there was a collective gasp from within the _Condor_; the tall, proud palace with its intimidating spires and chilling design barely stood upright. Multiply holes in the walls, landing platforms broken and fallen away, sections of the roof and support structure broken away; it looked pathetic. Sections of the ruin still smoked, though they couldn't see any fires.

"Guess that explains the rumbling sound," Finn mumbled.

"But…I thought the Darkness only worked with illusions and stuff? Why would it risk…hurting…anyone? It's only looking for energy right?"

"Junko, it had a vendetta against Cyclonia. Fabian and Tylur were the ones that sealed it, and with Aerrow, Tylur's descendant…taken care of, Fabian's was next. Stork," Piper turned to the Merb, "we're going to look for survivors."

"I'll stay on the _Condor_."

Piper nodded and ran for the hangar. Mounting her heliscooter, the others right behind her, she took off, aiming for where the throne room should have been. Junko and Finn broke off to search different sections of the palace, leaving her with just Radarr.

Flying low, she skimmed just above the broken, jagged sections of wall and pillars. She and Radarr scanned as best they could from the air, watching, hopeful for any sign of life among the rubble. When Piper looked back at Radarr to ask if he'd found anything, he shook his head with a mournful whimper. She wasn't about to give up that easily; mouth set in determination, Piper maneuvered her heliscooter down through the debris, landing on a fallen section of wall that created a small clearing. She dismounted, pulling out her staff but keeping in retracted to its smallest form. Radarr put his nose to the ground, started sniffing out any human scent.

Piper wandered through the forest of dusty bricks and pillar fragments, finding little trails, ducking and climbing when there were none. She looked under collapsed sections of wall, lifting any that were movable, peering into small crevices created by propped up pillars. She found no one.

Suddenly she heard gravel shifting and a desperate but frustrated groan. Moving quickly so as not to lose whoever it was, she ran through a small open space that left open the large Talon insignia painted onto the floor, and around another heap of rubble. The bottom half of her body pinned by a small block of what may once have been the roof, the dusty torso of Master Cyclonis struggled to free herself. Piper walked the slowly up to her, Radarr popping up from no where to join them, and stopped by the girl's head. Cyclonis remained oblivious to their presence for a moment but when she noticed them standing over her, her whole body froze, eyes growing impossibly wide.

"You amped on crazy dark energy too? Come to finish me?" she growled.

Piper raised an eyebrow, "Do you want my help or not?"

"I don't need your help, Storm Hawk," Cyclonis spit, "I'm fine."

She resumed her pushing on the heavy block. Piper looked over to the side; the only thing keeping Cyclonis from being completely crushed was a second section of the roof, holding the first one up, but not by much.

"If you insist" Piper conceded.

She motioned with her head to Radarr and started to walk away. But after a couple of steps Piper simply turned and seated herself on a piece of a pillar, the furry blue copilot scampering up next to her.

Cyclonis watched them anxiously but her expression hardened when Piper sat down and looked at her. Angrily, she angled her head away and resumed trying to free herself.

"What happened here?" Piper asked after a moment.

Cyclonis laughed, high and strangled sounding. "What happened?" she repeated, "Your crazy Sky Knight is what happened. The Atmosian council testing a new crystal or something?" she asked, half sarcastic, "Because he can fly, you know, without anything to help him. And he can do stuff to people, make them disappear. Make them crazy."  
She paused, laid her head back and let her arms fall outward with an exasperated sigh.

"Most of them jumped, my Talons, into the Wastelands to escape. Some of them I could justify; they started shouting crazy things and attacking the air, only to fall of the edge of the Terra. Most of them deserted me though. Traitors. And the Dark Ace is the worst."

"He left too?"

"Ha! He was one of the first! Took one look at your flying friend and the infected Talons…well, if I'd blinked, I'd have missed him."

"Once a traitor always a traitor, huh?"

"Don't patronize me! It was _your_ 'perfect' leader who did this in the first place."

The momentary smile vanished from Piper's face as quickly as the Dark Ace had from Cyclonia.

"Cyclonis," Piper started, "we can still be friends, you know."

The young ruler looked shocked, but she quickly recovered. "Are you changing the subject? We already tried that didn't we? I have more important things to do than get friendly with the enemy."

Piper was lost for words, but they came back soon enough, "Like what? Getting unstuck?"

"Very funny. Witty even."

"I'm serious Cyclonis; we don't have to be enemies. We-"

"Yes we do. It's not a matter of simply switching sides, Piper. I have to do this."  
"Duty and honour, right? Way back in your family tree you believe the Atmos was controlled by Cyclonia, and that it was stolen from you, and now you have to get it back whether you want to or not? Killing hundreds of innocent people to control a thousand Terras you don't care about, all because someone told you you have to?"

Her words struck home. Cyclonis averted her eyes, staring at the rock that kept her pinned.

"What if I told you that wasn't true? That Cyclonia never controlled the Atmos? That part of the story is missing in your history?"

"What are you talking about?"

Piper pulled the green book from the pack on her back. "This book," she tapped the cover, "explains what's happening to Aerrow. It's a complete history that's been scraped off and rewritten about Cyclonia and the Atmos. We used to be allies. Your ancestor saved the Atmos from total destruction."

"You're saying that everything I know is a lie?" anger was creeping into her voice again, "And I'm supposed to believe you? Just like that, I'll drop everything and join you? Become a Sky Knight? Please!"

Piper let out her breath in a frustrated huff, "Just…suspend disbelief for a moment okay? Suppose what I'm saying is true and we could be allies? Do you really want to keep fighting?"

Cyclonis frowned, "No," she relented, "I don't."

"Then the first step," Piper said, getting to her feet and walking over, "is to let us help you."

With all three of them pushing and pulling together, they managed to lift the roof section long enough for Cyclonis to swing her legs free. Coughing in the dust that swirled up when they dropped the block, Cyclonis got slowly to her feet. Other than some bruising and muscle strain she seemed to be okay. Slowly, awkwardly, they made their way back to Piper's heliscooter.

"So what _is_ happening to your Sky Knight?"

"Its part of the history I mentioned. Not going into details, there's a centuries old being controlling him, making people hurt to make himself stronger. Your ancestor, Fabian Cyclonis, stopped him the last time he was free, which is why this happened." Piper gestured to the palace ruins around them.

"Hmm, well, I don't see how I can be of much help," Cyclonis admitted, glaring at the ground as they clambered over the debris, "with my top generals and a good three quarters of my soldiers gone."

"We'll take what we can get," Piper said wisely, helping the Cyclonian queen climb over a downed pillar.

"How exactly do you plan to stop Aerrow anyway?"

Piper flinched, it did not go unnoticed. "The same way Fabian did."

"Which is?"

Piper breathed deep, "Stab him with a crystal."

"Stab him? With a crystal? Any old crystal or are you talking about one in particular?"

"One in particular," Piper said, fingering the triangular blue around her neck, as they approached the scooter, "You know," she said, cutting off Cyclonis, "you should really be thinking of how to coordinate your Talons, and about what you're going to say to the others."

"The others? Storm Hawks?"

"Duh. They still don't like you. We're going to have a lot of explaining to do."

"We?" Cyclonis hugged the other girl around the waist as they lifted off, steadying herself.

"Of course; friends help friends right?" she smiled, though she knew Cyclonis couldn't see her.

"Friends," the Cyclonian whispered. And she smiled too, the word filling her up with a warmth she'd only briefly ever felt.

As they approached the _Condor_ they saw a dozen or so Talons huddled together on the landing strip, Finn and Junko standing guard. All of them looked worse for wear, clothes torn and goggles broken, hanging loose around their necks and each covered in dust.

As the girls landed, the Talons all looked fearfully at their Master, silently asking for help.

Piper slid off her scooter and waited for Cyclonis before walking over to Junko and Finn. They looked questioningly at both of them, a little suspicion in their eyes.

"Cyclonis has declared a truce," Piper said, "she's going to help us stop the Darkness."

"Master?" one of the braver Talons stepped forward, "is this true Master? Are we allying ourselves to the Storm Hawks?"

Cyclonis glanced sideways at Piper, before nodding to the soldier, "Yes, we are. You are my most loyal Talons, you didn't flee when we were attacked, and I trust that you will not abandon me now."

"Of course not Master Cyclonis," they all chimed, bowing to the girl.

"Piper?" Finn asked his voice skeptical, crossbow clenched tightly in his hands, "Really?"

"Yep. We need all the help we can get, and Cyclonia isn't in the best position to refuse."

Finn turned away, grudgingly lowering his weapon.

Rather than walk all the way to the bridge, Piper walked back to her heliscooter and flipped the intercom switch, "Stork? You there?"

"Where else would I be?" he responded, voice tinny over the radio. "Besides hiding under my bed?" he mumbled.

Piper sighed, "Did you hear? Cyclonia is fighting _with_ us now."

"Right-"

"Have you found the Darkness?" She cut off the suspicious rant she knew would follow.

"Of course. Look up."

Piper turned her head skyward. Cyclonis, standing beside her, did the same.

Arms folded across his chest, black aura stronger than ever, the Aerrow-shaped Darkness hovered over the ruins of the Cyclonian palace. He smirked down at them, expression condescending and amused at the same time.

* * *

_**Guess what happens next chapter all you people who don't review. Nyeh! ;p**_


	11. Stab Him With a Crystal

"He still looks like Aerrow," Junko mused, staring up at the Darkness, "you think he'd have, I dunno, changed shape or something."

Piper looked up too and silently agreed with the Wallop, wondering why this powerful evil being chose to stay in their friend's form instead of reverting to its original. She pushed the thought out of her head; she was wading too close to dangerous waters.

"He's just floating there…" she said, bemused.

"Maybe he's just trying to weird us out," Finn suggested, fingers nervously, absently, adjusting the scope on his crossbow.

"It's working," Cyclonis muttered under her breath.

A few more moments passed and, when nothing happened, Piper nudged Cyclonis without taking her eyes off Aerrow, gesturing toward the hangar with her chin. Together the two girls backed slowly into the recess and as they were about to lose sight of him, the Darkness moved. He lifted his right hand from where it was folded across his chest, and pointed almost lazily at the _Condor_; the same black lightning Piper had seen on Rex swirled from nothing at the end of his finger and shot into the middle of the group of Talons, Finn, and Junko who were still gathered at the end of the landing strip, shattering into smaller sizzling bolts and whistling past faces and legs. The previously frozen people burst into life, scattering in different directions only to freeze at the strip's edge, leaning over open sky, before whirling and stampeding toward the hangar. Piper and Cyclonis jumped back and plastered themselves to a wall so as not to get trampled, watching the floating, gloating threat and at the same time the people running toward them.

Finn was the fastest and nearly two steps away from the shelter of the hangar when the lock-down door suddenly clanged shut, locking him and everyone else outside.

"No!" Piper gasped, rushing forward and throwing her hands against the door, fingers spread wide, hoping that maybe it was just another of the Darkness' illusions. No such luck; she rested her forehead on the cool metal of the door and slammed her fist into it, huffing as the hollow thud of her flesh striking the thick metal echoed once in the empty hangar bay.

She didn't know to blame Stork or the Darkness for locking her friends outside, leaving them at the latter's non-existent mercy.

"Piper," Cyclonis whispered harshly in the dim light, her body merely a silhouette, "that's not helping either us or them."

The navigator stood up straight. Cyclonis was right of course, giving in to despair and fear wouldn't help anyone.

"Come on," she said, fumbling in the poor lighting to grab the other's hand. Piper led Cyclonis over to the door on the far side and into the _Condor_'s main halls. Once through the girls simultaneously dropped each others hand, Cyclonis unconsciously lagging behind as they began to run. Piper headed for the bridge, for the master control of the lock-down door. It didn't matter if either the Darkness or Stork had triggered the door; they could open it from the bridge. And if not, they could always jump down from the balcony. Moving through the dim, quiet halls with her ally-as-of-only-minutes-ago Piper felt on edge, a tingling at the back of her neck like someone was stepping on her grave. Maybe it was just that Cyclonis was behind her but something told her otherwise; she thought she felt heat at the hollow of her throat.

"The bridge is just up that hallway," she said, pointing to a turn a few feet away. She hurried around the corner, down the passage a few steps and jolted to a stop, spinning around at the pained gasp behind her.

"Cyclonis?" Piper peered around the around the corner, then stepped out to put a hand on her friend's shoulder, "Cyclonis, what is it?"

The young ruler didn't answer, but clapped her hands to her head as if to hold her skull together, her face twisting in evident pain as she breathed in short little gasps. Screeching at the excruciating mental torture, Cyclonis staggered to her knees, throwing a hand out momentarily when she nearly keeled over sideways. She moaned as Piper watched helpless, and bent her body in on itself until she was in a little upright ball with her forehead on the ground, hands still on her head.

And then it stopped; the pain vanished as suddenly as it came and she stayed prone for a few seconds, gasping for air. Cyclonis finally looked up and Piper breathed a sigh of relief. However the girl's eyes passed over her as she frantically scanned the hallway.

"Piper?" she called, pushing herself up with weak arms onto shaky legs.

"I'm right here," the navigator said, shoving away her curiosity and discomfort to offer the other her strength.

Cyclonis gave no indication that she had heard and called her name again, surging forward past Piper and around the corner, an involuntary whine escaping her throat at the empty corridor beyond, intuition telling her that something much worse than her only friend disappearing was going on.

"Oh no," Piper whispered as the Cyclonian ran off. She'd seen this before too, on Rex with the white-haired woman and her son. She followed Cyclonis to the bridge, momentarily forgetting the possible situation of the others on the landing strip in favour of this new, closer problem.

Piper nearly ran into the stationary girl, frozen just inside the door as she was. Cyclonis raised a wobbly hand and pointed in the general direction of the helm, the quivering distorting her aim, "Shouldn't the pilot be here?"

For a second Piper thought she was asking _her_, that she was suddenly visible again; until Cyclonis moved again, creeping up to the helm as if expecting Stork to jump out at her, and starting moaning again, "Where'd he go? And Piper too…"

Piper gasped, running to the helm; Stork lay on his stomach, his eyes open and unblinking, arms stretched over his head from when he fell. She kneeled beside him, putting her hand on his chest, feeling the gentle rise and fall. Piper allowed herself a small smile; he was only asleep, albeit an enchanted, nightmare-filled sleep, but still alive.

"No…no, they're all gone!" Cyclonis' shaky exclamation pulled her concentration away from the Merb. Piper stood up and walked to Cyclonis' side at the window, the sight below all too familiar. Finn, Junko, Radarr, and all the Talons running wild or laying still, all with glazed eyes, faint shouts heard through the glass windows. Piper breathed out sharply, the realization that she was the only one left forming a tight ball in the pit of her stomach.

"Don't leave me alone!" Cyclonis screamed, pounding on the glass as she slid to her knees.

She couldn't have put it better, Piper thought, watching as the girl burst into tears, but unsure of what to do. Unsure of why she hadn't been forced into a nightmare as well.

"_Why can't I find you, Piper?_" his voice whispered in her ear. Too shocked to scream Piper spun around, tripping over her feet as she jumped back, only to find the bridge empty. Heart pounding in her chest, head throbbing where it had connected with the window, she pushed herself upright on the glass and looked over at Cyclonis; the other gave no acknowledgement that she had heard or seen anything.

Taking deep breaths to steady her racing pulse, Piper half rolled, half twisted around, leaning on the window and looking up; the Darkness was in the exact same spot it'd been in when Stork first pointed it out.

She stepped away from the window, out of his line of sight. Looking at Stork and Cyclonis and the others out on the landing strip one last time, Piper pulled one of the three levers attached to the helm to open the hangar door, then headed out, her face set, fingering Fabian's crystal still around her neck.

She climbed onto her heliscooter, revved the engine, and hesitated. Taking off without running over or hitting anyone might be a challenge the way they were all running around. Piper slipped off the scooter and grabbed the handlebars, started pushing the vehicle slowly out of the hangar. She moved cautiously, unsure of whether she'd be attacked if any of the affected people saw her and mistook her for one of their nightmares. At the edge of the landing strip Piper looked up to judge the Darkness again; it'd dropped lower, moved its hands to its sides, smirking in anticipation.

Piper braced herself against the deck and shoved her scooter overboard, jumping after it and pulling herself onto the seat. She dropped a few feet before the propellers caught, then turned and climbed level to the Darkness.

"Piper," he said, "you're looking…_hopeless_. You came to face me all alone?"

Her scowl deepened. Piper blinked, resisting the urge to cry and scream at him, to let him know how much he'd hurt her, through the people on Rex, through Harrier, Cyclonis, Finn, and Stork and the others…and Aerrow. He knew exactly how much it hurt her and he reveled in it. She bit her tongue, forcing herself not to charge him already and make him feel the pain he'd inflicted on all of them.

He cocked an eyebrow, exaggerating the movement, making it clear how much he was mocking her, "No snappy comments? That's right Piper, keep all that emotion bottled inside. Seethe and rage at me until you explode; anger tastes so much better…fermented."

Her eyes widened. She bit back a shout, wanting to yell at him that that wasn't going to happen; to tell him that she was going to make him pay for hurting everyone, that she was going to stop him.

But Piper kept her mouth closed tight as ever. Above all, she could not raise suspicion of what she was going to do. He would be expecting it this time. She suspected that Fabian only got lucky the first time, and that the Darkness would be expecting the same trick twice.

He sneered at her and several screams pierced the air, drifting up from the deck of the _Condor_. Piper recognized Junko's voice among them.

"No!" she couldn't help herself anymore, "Stop it! Leave them alone! What have they ever done to you? Haven't you done enough?"

He chuckled and, though she couldn't be sure, Piper thought the sky may have gotten a little darker, "Piper, it's only been thirteen days. I could the suck the life out of every creature in the entire Atmos for the next millennia and not be satisfied. And I do plan to be around for that long."

Something burst inside her, "Fat chance!" she cried, unthinkingly whipping out her staff and swinging it at his head.

There was a loud _thwack_ and his head whipped so far and so fast to the side she was sure that under ordinary circumstances she'd have broken his neck. But he just turned his head back to look at her, his neck cracking sickeningly and his dark eyes meeting hers. He glared at her and slowly reached back with one hand pull out one of Aerrow's energy daggers; he lit it and it glowed with the same dark energy that surrounded him.

He struck silently, suddenly. Without warning his blade was slashing through the air, arcing up to her chin; Piper jerked her head back, barely avoiding the crackling energy of the blade. She threw her staff out as he brought his arm down, catching the blade mid strike**.** They held, battling in place for a moment, the Darkness slowly, inexorably forcing Piper's arms down until she tilted her staff and his blade skittered harmlessly along its length before falling through empty air.

A split-second flash of despair struck in her chest as, instead of flailing off balance, the Darkness simply flowed with the motion, swinging around and aiming for her head. Piper threw her staff out, striking the dark-glowing blade on the side, momentarily diverting him. The next six attacks came in rapid succession, beating her down, his blade coming dangerously close to the propellers of her heliscooter; it was all she could do to hold him off.

She couldn't take much more of this. Their little fight was hardly long enough to be called a battle yet his strength greatly outmatched hers. She had to do something…and fast.

Taking half of a second to analyze her situation, she saw no immediate answer to her problem. Hopelessness flooded through her. She was alone, miles above any solid ground, fighting an immortal enemy in the guise of her best friend who was so much stronger than her.

She let out a tiny shriek as his blade whistled past her head, glancing off the shaft that connected the propellers to her scooter, forcing herself to concentrate on just surviving the next few minutes.

They broke apart. The Darkness didn't seem to be breathing any faster than normal, but Piper could feel the sweat on her brow, lacing her arms. Her breathing came in quick little gasps, her muscles shaking from the force of repeatedly locking blades with an enemy far stronger than her.

He flashed her a small smirk and attacked again; Piper swung her staff out, meeting the glowing energy dagger halfway. What little breath she had fled in a huff as their weapons met, sparks flying as metal screeched against metal. And suddenly she knew what to do, an idea springing into life as she watched a single tiny spark as it floated down, bright against the dark sky, and faded into oblivion.

Her left arm gave out and with a simple flick of his wrist the Darkness sent her staff flying. Piper watched as her only weapon tumbled farther and farther away from her, finally disappearing from view as it fell through the clouds to the Wastelands. She looked back up only to meet Aerrow's face as his hand wrapped around her neck.

He chuckled, "So weak, Piper. Hardly worth the effort…"

"Why don't you just kill me then?" she spat, glaring fiery, white-hot daggers at him.

He laughed full out at that and brought his head closer to hers, "Piper," he said, Aerrow's lips almost touching her ear, "if I kill you, how can I make you _suffer_?"

His breath was cold against her skin and she cringed away from it even as he held her. Then the full realization of his words sunk in; she tried to swallow past the choking force of his hand on her throat, and then he let her go.

Her head hit the seat of her scooter as he threw her off and without conscious thought Piper grasped the handlebars of her scooter, yanking them up. The heliscooter shot upwards, the wind whipping her hair into her eyes, cooling the sweat on her skin. As she continued to rise, Piper leaned over and looked down at the shrinking Darkness and the larger _Condor_ beneath him. Stretching her lips into a grimace-smirk of her own, she waved down at him, goading him.

He hesitated as the girl disappeared into the topmost layer of clouds that covered the Atmos, wondering what her plan was, what the trap was. But really, what could she do to him? Weak, mortal, human girl...he flew up after her.

He broke the cloud layer, bursting into blinding white sunlight; he threw a hand up to shield his eyes, the light shining red and painful even behind his closed lids. It was too hot, too bright, he couldn't see…

With a shrieking battle cry Piper swung her scooter around, materializing as a silhouette against the sun, stopping inches in front of him. Flowing with the motion she swung her arm out in an arc, stabbing past his arm, the armor on his chest, Fabian's crystal seeming to lead the charge as it embedded itself deep in his chest. She choked in a breath as her body began to glow with the crystal; she could feel it draining her, making her weaker and weaker. Piper slumped against the handlebars, her fingers slipping limply from the crystal, barely mustering the energy to stay conscious. She watched through blurry, unfocused eyes as thick, black liquid oozed like blood from around the crystal. Her eyes dropped to her hand and, just before her vision faltered to leave her in a world of white mists, she saw her hands covered in the same black, freezing cold substance. Then she was dimly aware of falling, the white transitioning into black, spiraling down, down into infinite darkness.

Aerrow doubled over, his fingers clenched around the triangular blue crystal lodged in his chest. Dark liquid seeped over his hands, fizzling out of existence as it fell into open air; the Darkness stared down, mouth open in disbelief, his eyes widened in pure human terror. No…not again! It had hadn't been two weeks! It wasn't possible! No!

His body began to spasm, his limbs shaking as his aura slowly faded. He fell.

Back beneath the clouds, falling, he clawed at the empty sky, trying desperately to stay up, to stay in control. Against his will, his fingers starting twitching, curling his hands into fists. What-? Aerrow!

He _should _have killed him! But he wasn't strong enough…!

With one last monumental burst of strength the Darkness managed to stop his fall. He hovered for a second, trying to force Aerrow under his control again, to stay free, to stay _out!_ But sudden intense pain flashed through him, streaking out from the crystal still locked in his flesh and with one huge, silent explosion, the darkness was ripped open.


	12. After

**_So this is the second ending I've written for this 'cause the first one seemed kinda forced in the happily-ever-after direction. If you wanna read it, lemme know. I don't know how this fits with the rest of the story in terms of atmosphere...I wrote it at about 1am last night and tweaked it a little today. Maybe people will review this one?_**

* * *

Finn stumbled through the swinging double doors of the back entrance of the hospital, his shoulders sagging, black dust smeared across his face. He trudged through the dim, white hallways, his footsteps echoing strangely in the night quiet. He clenched his fingers tighter around the cylindrical piece of metal he carried as he came closer to his destination. After six long, long days of searching…

He pushed open the thick door and crept into the isolated room, eyes travelling automatically to the person standing just off to the side of the entrance. The sounds of his boots against the off-white tiles of the floor were the only sounds in the room.

Finn stopped when he was standing beside her, close enough that their hands brushed momentarily. She shied away from the contact, taking a single step over, but she didn't look at him.

"We found it," he said, his voice just above a whisper. He offered her the metal rod.

Starling finally turned from what she'd been staring at. She looked just as terrible as he felt, her eyes slightly bloodshot with black circles underneath, and a pale, whitish tinge to her skin. The hospital lights probably didn't help.

The Sky Knight looked at him and nodded, and he passed her the rod. Her face oddly set, Starling slowly made her way across the room to the long, wooden box sitting in stark contrast to the rest of the room on a low table. Bracing herself internally she lifted the lid, and, bowing her head, carefully placed the retracted staff under Piper's clean, folded hands.

Finn looked away, closing his eyes. He flinched when he felt Starling's cold touch on his shoulder moments later, and stomped out of the room, his expression angry and determined. She didn't touch him again and so when Starling joined him in the hallway, Finn walked with her.

Deeper into the hospital, to a louder and brighter lit ward they walked, a silent pair bringing silence with them. People -nurses, doctors, and patients- stopped what they were doing and turned to watch them pass. But the stares slid off them easily, unimportant, trivial.

Soon they found Junko, and Stork lurking behind him. Both stood up as the two approached, and walked to meet them. They looked questioningly at Finn, through a black eye, and a slipping bandage.

"I found it," he confirmed sullenly.

Stork nodded, absently pushing the white cloth higher up his forehead. He gestured vaguely at the room outside which he and Junko had been sitting, and the window of which Starling was now frowning through, "There's still nothing."

Finn didn't have the energy to react; he seemed to have run out of emotions lately. He joined Starling at the window of the door, peering through at the single occupant lying prone on the bed.

They'd all been released from the trance at the same time. When Stork had woken up and seen both Aerrow and Piper falling through the clouds, hurtling toward a broken spire of Cyclonis' palace, he hadn't hesitated. Jumping to his feet, the Merb had leapt at the controls, steering the ship towards the

two falling Storm Hawks. The pilot had managed to maneuver the Condor under them, then slowed to just under their rate of descent, catching them without doing them any further damage. However, neither had moved. Finn and Junko, and the others on the flight deck had all rushed forward as one, surrounding both teens, checking wounds, and bones, and vitals. They hadn't found a pulse for Piper.

Aerrow was alive, but bleeding heavily through a wound on his chest, blood pouring out around the triangular blue crystal stuck in the wound. Small wisps of black mist swirled around the crystal, and dissolved completely when it was taken out.

He hadn't moved since. Not one twitch except for his steady breathing gave any sign that the young Sky Knight was still alive. The Council had ordered him to be bandaged properly and then sealed off. The room he lay in now was locked, and only the Head Councilman and one or two doctors had access. No one had been allowed in to see him; this was the best they got.

"I want to see him," Cyclonis demanded, "and I want to know what happened!"

Allowing himself the smallest of sighs, Oliver, the Head of the Sky Knight Council, slowly shook his head.

"You know I can't do that," he said in response to the girl's first request, "until he wakes up, and we know for absolute, 100% certain, that that boy is Aerrow of the Storm Hawks. As for knowing what happened, I can start at the beginning for you-"

"I know the beginning," Cyclonis said tiredly, putting her fingers to her forehead, "I want to know why P- she died, and why the Sky Knight hasn't woken up yet."

Oliver stood up, and shuffled down the steps of the large counter-desk. When he reached ground level, he reached up to put a consoling hand on Cyclonis' shoulder. He steered her to the back room, and sat her down in a hard-backed chair before pacing in front of her.

"I can only guess," he admitted, "not having been there myself, and not being in either of their minds. Piper died because that crystal she used needed a sacrifice to work, and it took her life's energy."

He paused, and turned old, tired eyes to the disgraced young queen before him. Breathing deep, he shook his head again, "As for why Aerrow hasn't woken…there are many possibilities. The first, most likely reason would be that the Darkness was not lying when it said it had killed him, and Piper sealed it in a body no longer alive. Or perhaps, Aerrow is still alive, but was not strong enough to break through the Darkness and was sealed with it. And then there is the possibility that Aerrow has simply been under too much stress, and his mind locked itself in an effort of self-preservation, and his coma will break whenever he's ready to deal with everything that has happened."

Here Oliver stopped, and sank heavily into the large chair opposite Cyclonis'. He hung his head and sighed.

"We just don't know," he mumbled.

When he showed no sign of continuing, or moving in the near future, Cyclonis stood silently, and, after a moment's hesitation, quietly left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Oliver looked up, staring at the dark paneled wood of the door, his mind on the other side of the Terra, in sealed room of the Atmosia General Hospital. In his head he saw a picture of an eager eleven year old boy, asking to become a Sky Knight, and compared it to the recent memory of same boy, fourteen years old, lying still and pale on a hospital bed, silent as the grave.

He wondered if, had he denied that bright eleven year old nobody the chance to train as a Knight, any of this would have happened. Would that same innocent boy be smiling on some far off Terra, blissfully unaware of the evil he harboured inside himself?

"Oh, Sky Knight," the Councilman moaned, "I know you can do this. Please, wake up!"

Finn stood on the edge of the Terra, looking out over the seemingly endless expanse of swirling clouds, watching the sun set. It bathed the entire world a brilliant orange, gleamed off the metal armour he wore, and it seemed to catch in his hair, giving it an overall fiery look. It reminded him of the night this whole thing started.

Radarr shifted on his shoulder, breaking his train of thought. Looking around at the others, Finn let himself worry about the future. What was going to happen to them now? Almost half of their family had been taken from them, and each of them had suffered some sort of damage at the Darkness' hands. Would they split up and try to recover on their own, in their own way? He vaguely remembered Stork saying something about only staying until something better showed up. Would a chance to run from this reality count as "something better"?

"What now?" he finally asked when he couldn't take not knowing any more.

He looked at each person in turn and, though no one directly answered him, Starling had an answer on her face. She smiled at them all, and gestured toward the _Condor,_ and then she turned and led them back to the only home they'd really known. She walked with her back straight, and her head held high, silent tears running down her cheeks as she cried for the second family she'd lost, and the fears of the third she was building.

And all of them followed her.

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**_Pff, yeah, how's that for an ending? Xd_**


End file.
